Provision of Inclusive Pedagogy; Support System in Effect among Public Primary Schools in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the support system in effect to enhance the effective implementation of inclusive education. The trends of on job teachers‟ training, provision of peculiar educational inputs needed to implement inclusive education are examined. The study involved a sample of 44 teachers and 11 principals from 11 schools selected from three zones namely Wolaita, Sidama and Hadiya of southern regional state of Ethiopia. Questionnaire, interview, observation and document analysis techniques were used to collect the necessary data. The research target schools were selected as they are labeled as schools of high number of recorded student with special needs in the region. 11 teachers who teach in special unit classes were purposefully selected to be interviewed while 33 teachers who are teaching in the so called inclusive classes were randomly selected to fill questionnaires. School principals, interview participants, were selected by availability sampling. The data collected by these instruments was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. As the research is intended to describe the support system available to implement inclusive education, it is designed to be descriptive survey. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage were used to analyze the data collected from the questioners and document analysis while the data from the interview and observation were analyzed qualitatively. The result of the study showed that teachers who teach in the so called “Inclusive classroom” do not get on job training throughout their teaching career life time while teachers of special unit classes received limited on job training but not enough to make them teach beyond “O” classes. Hence, teachers‟ and directors‟ perception towards offering inclusive education found to be distorted. It seems placing students with and without physical disabilities in a single classroom or teaching students with physical disabilities in separated classroom is perceived as the end of offering inclusive education among teachers and school principals. Overwhelming majority of the schools has no school structure responsible to special needs related issues. The schools strategic planning is not inclusive education oriented. The implementation of pedagogy is not supported by assistive technology to address the special learning needs of students with special needs. The overall limited support provided to the school dominantly comes from the neighboring special schools and the modalities of offering special needs education in schools is the replica of these nearby supporting special schools. As a result the kind of special unit classes arranged for students with physical disabilities are limited to special unit classes of deaf and blind students in Hadya and Wolaita zones respectively to replicate the deaf and blind supporting special schools in these zones. In Sidama zone, where there is no any special school special unit classes are not available in the studied schools. Finally, the following recommendations are made. The necessary support system that is important to offer inclusive education need to be primarily established by the government and the society rather than totally shouldered by nearby special schools. The support system need to include offering Successive on job training for teachers, and school principals, establishing school structure responsible to inclusive education related issues, delivery of assistive technology to offer special needs education . The modalities of offering special needs education in special unit classes need to be diversified. Inclusive classes should offer inclusive pedagogy beyond mixing students with and without physical disabilities to accommodate students with diverse learning needs.