Teachers’ attitudes and knowledge towards implementation of inclusive education in primary schools in Kakamega County, Kenya

Abstract

Education is the foundation of all the developments that take place in any country and an investment any Government should bequeath its citizens. In line with Millennium Development Goals, Kenya put forward an Agenda to achieve Education for all by 2015. According to this agenda, learners with special needs and disabilities who had no access to education were to access it in inclusive settings and teachers had to be prepared in terms of attitudes and knowledge in handling these learners in inclusive schools. The purpose therefore of the present study was to determine teachers‟ attitudes and knowledge towards implementation of inclusive education in primary schools in Kakamega County. The objectives of the study included determining the teachers‟ attitudes, teachers‟ knowledge of teaching strategies, teachers‟ knowledge of adapting the curriculum and examinations, teachers‟ knowledge of providing suitable resources and environment, teaching experience towards implementation of inclusive education and how it had been implemented in primary schools. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and was based on social learning theory by Albert Bandura and social model of disability by Mike Carson. The conceptual framework involved teachers‟ attitudes toward inclusive education, knowledge of curriculum and examinations adaptations, knowledge of suitable resources and environment for all learners in inclusive schools as independent variables and implementation of inclusive education as dependent variables. There were 6989 teachers in primary schools in Kakamega County and out of this 2500 were in schools that practiced inclusive education and/ or integrated education. In this respect the researcher carried out the research in inclusive schools thus the population of this study was 2500 teachers. Published statistics with a population of between 2000 and 3000, the sample size allowed is 400. Data was collected by researcher made questionnaire, an observation checklist and an interview schedule that were adapted from the expert consensus model that identified teacher competencies needed to support inclusive education in schools. The instruments were validated by experts in the Educational Psychology department at Moi University. The reliability was estimated on a sample of 33 teachers of the sampled population in the pilot study and the aggregate overall correlation coefficient index for the five scales was 0.86 using Pearson product moment formula. The respondents who participated in the pilot study did not participate in the main study. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentages and frequency counts. The study found out that teachers who were handling inclusive classes had positive attitudes and 50% of them had knowledge of relevant teaching strategies but they did not adapt the curriculum and examinations adequately and also they did not provide adequate suitable resources and environment that could suit all learners thus implementation of inclusive education was not effective in Kakamega County. Further analysis using Chi-square and ANOVA on the influence of teachers‟ gender, teaching experience and qualification showed that they were significant on implementation of inclusive. The study recommended that teachers should be trained on inclusive education knowledge and that the Government of Kenya should formulate a specific policy on implementation of inclusive education program in primary schools. The findings are also useful to other stakeholders including headteachers of primary schools for planning how to sensitize stakeholders of primary schools for effective implementation of inclusive education programmes in primary schools in Kakamega County.