Inclusiveness in Tanzania’s public pre-primary education: Unbridged teachers’ and parents’ role awareness gap

ABSTRACT Though research on inclusive education in pre-primary in Tanzania exist, they have paid limited attention to the participation of parents and pre-primary teachers, in making their schools responsive to all the children’s needs. This study, therefore, was undertaken to establish how such stakeholders proactively contribute to making pre-primary offers equitable inclusive education. This qualitative descriptive study used semi-structured interviews with teachers and focus group interviews with parents to collect data. In all, 11 public pre-primary teachers and 43 parents from Kanyigo in Misenyi district and Nsalala in Shinyanga district were involved. Collected data were analyzed through a thematic content analysis procedure. Results show that, though teachers had a good understanding of inclusive education in pre-primary education, a good number of parents were largely ignorant about the concept. Consequently, parents participated poorly in fostering inclusive pre-primary education. Teachers participated in making pre-primary inclusive mainly through the preparation of instructional materials. Overall, transforming pre-primary education into more inclusive education was impacted by teachers’ and parents’ understanding of inclusion in teaching and learning. Planned and well-coordinated awareness initiatives and increasing budgetary allocations emerged in the study aimed to improve inclusion in PPE and serve its critical role as the foundational level of education.