Accessibility of technical and vocational training among disabled people: Survey of TVET institutions in North rift region, Kenya

Abstract

People with disabilities face particular challenges in education and training. Most of them are depriv ed of access to basic literacy and numeracy skills. They also fa ce barriers that affect access to Technical Vocatio nal Education and Training (TVET) institutions some of them arisi ng from the surrounding socio-economic environment and from mainstream TVET institutions. The main purpose of this paper was to assess barriers to accessibil ity of TVET institutions by disabled people in Kenya. The study was carried out in the North Rift Region of K enya. The target population of the study consisted of the lectures and students with disabilities in 5 publi c TVET Institutions. Semi Structured Questionnaires were u sed as the main instruments for data collection. Da ta collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics with the aid of SPSS IB M version 20. One of the most striking findings was that disabled students in TVET institutions are discriminated an d isolated. Findings also indicated that the disabled students cannot access some of the school buildings; they ar e also barred from enrolling in TVET due to policies that provide cut off point marks or entry behavior to co urses they desire to enroll in. It was also found that teacher s had positive attitude toward the disabled student s, contrary to the fact that students considered teachers to be un friendly to them. Therefore, the paper recommended that skills training and instructional mechanisms must consider specific needs of youth with different types of di sabilities before putting them together in regular class. Bett er coordination between the government and service providers could anticipate and mitigate this barrier. There i s also the need for specialized training institutio ns to be upgraded and modernized, and mainstream training in stitutions be adjusted to include training of perso ns with disabilities.