Experiences and Perceptions of Special School Personnel Regarding Inclusive Education: A Qualitative Study

The present study explored the experiences and perceptions of psychologists with regards to the benefits of inclusive education for special needs children. The phenomenological approach was used, and data was collected from four psychologists in the form of semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. The following themes emerged in favor of inclusive education: (i) Providing Support to Special Need Students; (ii) Requiring Qualifications and Experienced Teachers; (iii) Offering Training to School Staff; (iv) Identifying Barriers that Interfere with Inclusion: Stigma and Integration; and (v) The Positive Effects of Inclusive Education: Empathy, Social Skills, and Academic Achievement. The importance of training teachers and staff in inclusive education was also highlighted. The present study indicates that awareness programs are required to remove the social stigma against children with special needs in advancing inclusive education in Pakistan.

Human Capital and Economic Growth: Evidence from Selected Developing Countries

Despite the crucial role of human capital in the theoretical growth models, the empirical growth literature has yet to develop a consensus on the nature of relationship between human capital and economic growth. This study has been conducted to investigate whether human capital in terms of education and health indicators has a direct impact on output growth or indirect effect through total factor productivity growth. The study also attempts to explore the linear as well as non linear human capital-growth linkages and sensitivity of the human capital estimates to different econometric estimation techniques. The study has been conducted on a sample of selected countries covering all developing regions of the world. Our findings reveal that human capital has a well established role in accelerating growth through both its ‘level effects’ and ‘rate effects’. The results are not sensitive to the definition of the education variable. The impact of human capital components on both output growth and TFP growth are positive regardless of the estimation technique employed. However, the significance of the coefficients of human capital components changes with the estimation technique. The parametric models in general do not give sufficient evidence for non linearity in the human capital-growth relationship. The semi parametric model, on the other hand, points out the existence of the non linear link, yet it does not indicate the exact form of the non linear connection.