Estimating weightage and prioritizing major domains of inclusive education assessment framework using analytical hierarchy process

Inclusive education, imperative globally, addresses the challenges faced by a substantial population with disabilities. The principles of human factor engineering, centered on creating a holistic, safe, and sustainable environment, directly align with mainstreaming persons with disabilities. Quality education, a vital aspect of sustainable development goals, enhances societal resilience. In India, the absence of facilities, resources, inclusive infrastructure, and a barrier-free environment hampers inclusive school achievement. Additionally, financial constraints in developing countries like India necessitate resource-efficient prioritization strategies. While previous studies have attempted to assess inclusive education, they often lack a structured methodology to systematically prioritize key domains, limiting their applicability in decision-making. This study contributes to an ongoing investigation, creating an assessment framework for successful inclusive education in Delhi’s elementary schools. Using a two-round fuzzy Delphi method, consensus analysis with 25 experts identified 33 assessment indicators across seven domains. To overcome limitations in existing prioritization and weightage identification methods, this study employs both the analytical hierarchy process and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to assign weights to these domains and to prioritize them. A paper-based survey collected responses from 71 education professionals which uses a scale from 1 to 9 for pairwise comparisons between the domains. Results from both methods indicate that “availability of appropriate resources” holds the highest weightage, while “teacher’s attitude” ranks the lowest. This research provides a novel, structured approach to identify the domain weightage and prioritization, addressing existing methodological gaps and enhancing decision-making in inclusive education. The findings serve as a foundation for a scoring methodology of the assessment framework of inclusive education; also this can guide policymakers in strategic planning, resource allocation, and the development of inclusive schools in India. Future work involves developing an assessment framework for effective inclusive education which further improves inclusive education planning and implementation.