Which of the following is not a characteristic of inclusive education?

Inclusive education is the principle that every learner - regardless of disability, background, or ability - is educated together in the same general classroom, with individualised support built into that shared setting rather than students being routed into a separate system.

Applying this to the item: a genuine characteristic of inclusive education must describe support, values, or participation delivered within the mainstream classroom. Meeting special educational needs inside the regular class, valuing and celebrating learner diversity, and drawing the teacher, parents, the child and the community into a shared process are all features that fit this definition. A description that confines schooling to a separate, disability-only special-education track does the opposite - it re-creates the segregation that inclusion exists to remove, so it cannot be one of inclusion's characteristics.

• Supporting special educational needs - fits, because inclusion provides that support inside the mainstream classroom, not outside it.

• Celebrating diversity - fits, because valuing differences among learners is a defining value of inclusion.

• Ensuring the participation of the teacher, parents, the child and society - fits, because inclusion is built on this shared responsibility.

• Confining education to a separate special-education track for children with disabilities - does not fit, because it separates rather than integrates, which contradicts the definition above.