The education for all (EFA) agenda is targeted at achieving inclusive education across regions of the world including developing countries (DCs). The policy is nonetheless not inclusive in the actual sense of the concept. Emphasis of the EFA on ensuring parity in the ways male and female pupils access education in formal settings restricts the policy from becoming genuinely inclusive. Inclusive education as to be a core philosophy to moving the provisions of EFA forward encourages changes to existing local cultures that disadvantage some children and young people within education systems in DCs. It begins with the belief that education is the basic human right of all and the foundation for a more just society. Thus, inclusive education draws on the idea of social inclusion to redefine the provisions of the EFA in order to ensure that education is sincerely for ‘all’ and not nearly for all in DCs.
Keywords: DCs, EFA, Inclusion, Pupils., rural areas
