Publication:

Challenges facing special needs students in public Schools, private schools, charter schools and home Schooling

Education is regarded as a basic human right for all regardless of individual differences and a key ingredient for socio-economic development. Access, retention and participation are achieved through emphasis on inclusive education in regular schools for learners with special needs and disabilities. The purpose of this study was to establish constraints facing inclusive education for children with special needs in public schools, private schools, charter schools and home schooling. The objectives of the study was to analyze physical and teaching/learning resources provided for inclusive education for children with special needs; to establish factors enhancing teaching and learning skills used by teachers in implementation of inclusive education; to establish financial resources for supporting inclusive education and to find out difficulties faced by children with special needs and teachers in implementation of inclusive education for children with special needs in public schools, private schools, charter schools and home schooling. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and targeted all the head teachers and teachers in the public schools, private schools, charter schools and including home schooling offered by parents and guardians’ at home. Interval sampling technique was adopted to select the 12 participating schools and purposive sampling to select the participants. The sample size was 12 (17%) head teachers and 108 (15%) teachers. Data were collected using questionnaires and observation checklist, validated through piloting and their reliability assessed, analyzed using descriptive statistics using StataSE 11 and presented using percentages and frequency distribution tables. From the findings, schools were not well equipped with physical and teaching/learning resources to support inclusive education; female SNE teachers were fewer than their counterparts; teaching personnel who had undergone SNE training were few with the head teachers lagging denoting a shortage of manpower with requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes making it difficult to mainstream special education in public, private ,charter and home schooling; numerous support services that schools obtained from various stakeholders were noted; in spite of the Government of the Republic of Kenya being the main financier of inclusive education, its financial support was inadequate with delayed remittance; despite the head teachers being financial managers in their schools, majority had not undertaken school management courses. Moreover, few severe cases of learners with special needs enrolled requiring support from their parents, siblings and peers were reported. Other constraints faced by teachers in inclusive education were lack of motivation, irregular attendance of SNE learners, large class enrollment and lack of enough support from colleagues, whi ch compromised the quality of inclusive education. Based on these findings, timely remittance of adequate funds; capacity building for head teachers and teachers to keep them abreast with current trends in education and to enhance their efficiency; inclusion of special needs education at all levels of teacher education so as to embrace inclusive education; provision of adequate physical and material resources in support of inclusive education; and sensitization of the community on inclusive education were recommended to the Ministry of Education. The TSC was advised to adequately staff public schools, while private schools were advised to hire qualified teachers as well as, charter schools and home schooling to the parents who educate their children at home xiiand need support to cater for increased enrolment of learners. Finally, teachers were recommended to create rapport with learners to encourage regular attendance to school, because this will encourage good performance and act as a motivation to the learners with special needs.