Europe has played a strategic role in supporting disability inclusion internationally. In the last decade, the European Disability Forum and other European organisations have supported policy development and interventions in disability inclusion in India (EEAS, 2021). This support would continue to be essential in promoting programmes and high quality research on disability-inclusive education in low- and middle-income countries for the foreseeable future.

While there is significant literature on disability-inclusive education in India (Das et al, 2012; Shah et al, 2013; Sharma & Das 2015; Singal, 2019), not much attention has been paid to primary research on inclusive learning assessments in India. Research on disability-inclusive school education conducted by two of the authors of this paper has highlighted this key gap in evidence on inclusive learning assessments and related professional learning in the context of LMICs in the Asia-Pacific region (Chakraborty et al, 2019; Ahmed et al, 2022).

Although India became a signatory to the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action in 1994 and made significant progress in improving the education of students with disabilities (SWD), it still has a long way to go before educational institutions can be called inclusive. While the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) and Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 establish legal opportunities for advancing disability-inclusive education, the degree of inclusion of SWD is unequal across different types of schools in different regions. The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) proposes further strengthening of India’s commitment to inclusive education.

This paper looks at the role of assessments as a point of interaction between educational policy, school culture, and teachers’ perceptions of ability. Specifically, it focuses on formative assessments which have substantial impact on student learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998). The paper addresses the key question: ‘What is the experience of conducting inclusive formative assessments in classrooms for teachers in India?’. It uses a case study of a private, inclusive, co-educational school in New Delhi to arrive at an understanding of the possible reasons affecting the inclusion of SWD in assessments and studies how changing assessments can help realise the objectives of the RTE Act and the NEP 2020.

In the current system, mainstream examination boards governing the school leaving examinations and the National Institute of Open Schooling confine themselves to a timed, pen and paper examination, with the areas examined largely restricted to prescribed textbooks. This means that students have to memorise large amounts of text/information and complete examinations of five different subjects within a set time period of 20 days. Because of the nature of the examination, it effectively excludes students who cannot perform to a speed or pattern, or those who cannot memorise or retain information for long.

The Board examinations have a tremendous washback effect on the syllabus, classroom methodology, and assessments that percolates to the primary and even pre-primary levels. Children are subjected to ongoing weekly assessments to prepare them to meet the standards of the Board that are intended to be formative but end up becoming summative. Results of the examinations are used to establish popularity and competition among schools.

Against this background, it is important to understand how formative assessments are designed to be inclusive – taking into consideration the special needs of children with different abilities, the time/form, and the overall environment in which assessments are conducted – for improving learning. Since there is no single way of assessing students formatively, this study captures teachers’ experience of conducting formative assessments and assessment methods, as opposed to judging teachers’ ability or knowledge to assess SWD (Trumbell & Lash, 2013).

The study will use a case study approach to gather an in-depth understanding of formative assessment practices in the identified private inclusive school in New Delhi (Hamilton, 2011). Semi-structured interviews with teachers and classroom observations have been used to collect data on formative assessments used by teachers in the inclusive school. The practices will be viewed within the broader school context and guidelines from educational bodies. A questionnaire for interviews was developed to gather information on teachers’ understanding of disabilities, formative assessments and accommodations; methods of inclusive formative assessment practices; and factors that affect teachers’ classroom practices such as school and educational board guidelines and professional learning. The questionnaire contains approximately 10 questions with teacher interviews spanning 30 to 45 minutes so that participant fatigue is limited. Participants in this research include 10 in-service teachers from primary and secondary sections of the school. The selection will help to understand if and how formative assessment practices change at the secondary level when teachers prepare students for high stakes summative school leaving examinations. Purposeful sampling and snowballing have been used to identify teachers who have taught in classrooms with SWD. Positionality can affect the entire research process as well as its results (Rowe, 2014). Having insiders and outsiders in the team and a variety of perspectives add ‘validity and richness’ to research reports (Louis & Bartunek, 1992; Merriam et al, 2010). Therefore, the team consists of a mix of researchers and practitioners working for disability-inclusive education. Interviews have been conducted over a period of one month virtually and recorded through MS Teams with transcriptions generated automatically. The transcriptions will be matched with audio recordings before data analyses. Field notes will be taken during classroom observations to corroborate the information provided by the participants in the interviews. Care will be taken to make space for unexpected / unusual practices and approaches. The open-ended nature of this qualitative research will ensure that researchers do not start with a priori assumptions. Transcripts will be carefully labelled and coded and thereafter, grouped into relevant themes that emerge from the interviews (Skjott Linneberg, M. & Korsgaard, S., 2019). The analysis will yield findings that help to understand the experience of conducting formative assessments in classrooms for teachers at the identified school.

The study will describe teachers’ experience of conducting formative assessments for SWD. The results will be broadly organised around: practical challenges to developing and implementing classroom-based assessments for including SWD; teacher-led modifications of classroom-based assessments for inclusion of SWD; diversity in learning assessments for SWD with examples; school-level support for teachers to design inclusive classroom-based assessment – especially teacher autonomy and agency to determine what is best for her students; understanding and use of accommodations for inclusion; and the use of data from classroom-based assessments. The data from the study will reveal if and how the experience of including SWD in formative assessments in primary schools is different from the experience in secondary schools. Results from the study will bring out the voices of teachers who are at the ‘learning site’ implementing regular modifications to make assessments inclusive for all children. Capturing the overall school culture is one of the key steps in locating a case study that explores appropriate assessment processes for students with different abilities. The results will also cover the teachers’ understanding of disability; teacher-parent partnership for improving learning of SWD; and the influence of Board and school guidelines on teacher’s agency for disability-inclusive formative assessments. The data will also capture information on the extent to which classroom teachers rely on special educators for including SWD in formative assessments. The results will also elaborate on formal and informal systems of professional learning used by teachers to understand formative inclusive assessments or recognise disability. As a large number of today’s in-service teachers in India have not received any training on inclusive learning assessments during their pre-service training programmes, findings from the study on ongoing professional learning will throw light on areas of interest for teachers in the field of inclusive learning assessments.

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