Teachers’ preparedness in the implementation of special needs education in primary schools in Nyamira district, Nyamira County, Kenya

Abstract

This study investigated teachers' preparedness for the implementation of special needs education in primary schools in Nyamira district. Specifically, the study: Assessed the availability of teachers and learning materials appropriate for the implementation of special needs education integration; examined the level of integration of special needs education; identified the challenges facing the implementation of special .needs integration; and suggested possible ways of implementing successfully special needs integration in primary schools in Nyamira District. This study was based on education production function theory. The study was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The respondents were head teachers, teachers, students and an education officer of primary schools in the district. Stratified random sampling was used to select 7 primary schools for the study. This formed 30% of the total 24 public schools in the study area. All the head teachers, 30% of the teachers and 10% of the standard seven pupils in the selected schoolswere selected through simple random sampling to participate in this study. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview schedules. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. This involved frequencies, means, modes, standard deviation and percentages. This was done through the use SPSS. The study found that therewas very minimal number of trained SNE teachers in primary schools in the area of study.This is likely to hinder the implementation of SNE in educational institution in the area of study. It was found that majority of the learners had special learning disabilities while others had hearing impairments and physically handicapped. The study also reveals that materials provided by the schools were not enough to support the teaching and learning process. It was further established that teachers over rely on textbooks and playing field when teaching learners with special needs and rarely use artifacts, real objects and audio-visual materials. All the learners stated that teachers allow them to participate in class and out of class activities. The study found that the common problems the teachers faced as they taught learners with special needs were lack of support, lack of educational resources and lack of knowledge. The other challenges include lack of enough trained SNE teachers, lack or no adequate teaching/learning facilities (SNE), unawareness that disadvantaged children can have part to play in societal activities or services and lack of funds to run the integration process. The study recommends that teachers should be motivated so as to put more efforts in their duties. They should also be encouraged to attend in-service courses so that they can improve their teaching methods to enhance academic performance of the learners with special needs. Teachers and school administration should come up with programmes that will help the learners with special needs to have a positive attitude towards learning. Such programmes may include learner motivation and academic tours. The findings and recommendations of this study will be useful to educational administrators in implementing the special needs education in public primary schools in the district.