PSY1110 LESSON 11

PSY 1110: INCLUSIVE EDUCATION GUIDE NOTES
LECTURERS: DR. JANET NABISWA

DR. ELIZABETH MABELE
MS. EVERLINE MANG’ULA
LESSON 11
PROMOTING AN INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY
Inclusion of all learners in education can only be successful in a community that embraces
inclusion in all aspects of community activities
The following are essential elements that are pre-requisite to promoting inclusive community
 Advocacy
 Attitude
 Community Sensitization
 Environmental Accessibility
 Support Service
Advocacy
Advocacy refers to giving public support to idea or a course of action or belief. it is the
consistent involvement of persons with disabilities and their organizations in defining for
themselves the goal and the process they want to participate in. Through advocacy discriminative
practices and policies are eliminated e.g by developing resource rooms in regular schools. Such
groups and groups for parents for children with disabilities and organizations for PWDs act as
catalyst for change. Some of the areas for advocacy include:
 Staffing of schools with required number of teachers
 mobilizing of more school funds to provide learning materials
 Sensitizing of other learners , teachers , parents and the larger community to be more
receptive and accommodative to leaners with SNE
 Sensitizing the school administration to avail funds for environmental modification to
make it more accessible to all learners.
Attitudes
Stereotypic attitudes towards inclusion, disabilities and special needs in various cultures may
include;
 Persons with Mental disabilities are inhabited by evil spirits which can be passed on to
others
 Inclusion is costly
 Implementing Inclusion needs societal change in attitudes first
 Inclusion is a good theory but not Practical
 Inclusion requires special skills which are difficult to develop
COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

DR. NABISWA, DR. MABELE AND MS. MANG’ULA
 Inclusion is the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture and social services not
Education.
 Inclusion is about Disabilities
 Children with Disabilities cannot perform
 slow learners will never make it
 it is a waste of resources to educate girls
Community Sensitization
This can be done through
o Sharing knowledge and skills on special needs and disabilities highlighting their
nature and causes so as to remove stigmatization
o Holding awareness seminars for local leaders on the current trends in educational
provisions
o Sharing knowledge on policy and legal developments that positively impact on
children’s rights to community and public services
o Mobilizing community members to work as volunteers in various inclusive
programmes.
o Mobilizing community resources to serve persons with special needs by appealing
for contributions of funds to support inclusion
o Appealing to the community to provide facilities for activities related to inclusive
education
Accessibility to Environment
Physical and social barriers need to be identified and removed in:
 The home
 School
 Public facilities
 Physical surroundings
Support services
Support services include everything that promotes learning particularly those resources that
supplements what ordinary class teacher can provide. The support services may include resource
rooms, itinerant teachers, teacher aides, braille machines, sign language interpreters, hearing
aids, speech therapists etc. Other service may include;
 Using trained personnel existing in and around the school to support
learners with special needs.
 Sensitize regular children to support their peers with special needs in and
out of school.
 Trained teachers in SNE supporting other regular teachers
 Mobilize parents to act as partners in the education of their children.
 Collaborate with other specialists and professionals to support learners
with special needs.
BARRIERS TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

This refers to the obstacles to the implementation of inclusive education, there are barriers in
education, social, economic systems. All these affect the education of all learners. They include
the following;
 Lack of appropriate national policy and legislation
 Unfriendly learning environment and classroom factors
 Delayed identification and intervention
 Learner factors( severity, onset and nature)- Diversity of learners
 Negative attitude
 Poor community involvement
 Teacher and school
 Inadequate parental involvement
 Curriculum barriers
 communication between the teacher and the learner
 Rigid education approaches, evaluation and promotion criteria
 Insufficient/ lack of material resources
 Discriminative cultural factors
 political and economic factors
 Lack of resourcefulness of facilities
A few of the above listed barriers are explained below:

Lack of policy and Legislation
 There are policies on special needs but they lack clear guidelines on implementation. For
instance teachers posted to work with learners with special needs in inclusive schools are
not paid the allowance that their colleagues in social schools are paid. This demotivates
them.
 A policy on the provision of learning resources to children in inclusive programs should
be made clearer
 the ratio of learners with special needs to regular learners in a class or school is not
stipulated by the ministry of education
 No clear guidelines on parents roles in free primary education
 Insufficient political will at National, county, sub county and school level to enforce the
inclusive education practices and punish those promoting exclusive practices
 Most policies are on special education and lack guidelines on inclusive education.
 There is no policy to determine which category of learners may remain in special schools.
Unfriendly learning environment and school related factors

 Most classrooms lack organization with learning centres or corners such as nature
corners, project areas
 Lack of guidance to school community and in servicing of teachers
 lack of understanding of inclusion philosophy by teachers and other school community
 lack of proper and adequate facilities and infrastructure like sanitation facilities
 No acoustically treated classrooms
 Lack of or inadequate adaptations in public and private buildings to allow easy access
and mobility
 Shortage of secure accommodation in day institutions and long distance travel

 Unlikeable doors and windows
 Dirty and dusty classrooms
Delayed Identification and Intervention
 When identification is done late the intervention is alo delayed which leads to late
starting of school. lack of awareness of educational and assessment services
Learner Factors (severity, onset and nature)

This refers to factors in the learner that may affect his/her learning and development. They
include;
 Whether disability is mild, moderate, severe or profound

 Health problems. A learner may be out of school more often to seek medical attention
and this may affect his her performance
 Age of onset of the disability or difficulties in academic operations will also impact on
his/her learning for example the difficulty is congenital or acquired later in life
 The nature of special need for example if the problem is general mental disability or
specific learning difficulties.
Negative Attitudes of teachers, parents and other stakeholders
 Superstitions about disabilities have led to parents hiding their children with disabilities
because of the stigma. This denies these learners a chance to be in school.
 They look at children with special needs as a waste of time to educate them.
 Teachers with negative attitudes do not support SNE learners in regular classroom.
 Teachers may have low expectations from SNE learners and may not give challenging
work
 school administrators and policy makers in education feel that it is improper to waste
scarce resources on SNE learners
 Lack of good will and moral support from stakeholders due to ignorance, misinformation
and priorities
 Other stakeholders in the community may feel that they should not provide for the learner
with SNE because they are not directly responsible
 parents may prioritize the other children without SNE to school and only consider SNE
if finances are still available
 low expectations from learners with SNE leading to low self-esteem in the water
 Overprotection from parents hence preventing them from taking part in daily life
activities which may hinder a child from reaching his potentials.
 Some parents of regular learners may oppose having those with SNE in the same class
fearing that the education of their children will be adversely affected.
Poor Community Involvement

The community may fail to support inclusive education by not;

 Contributing towards construction of school buildings by providing local materials such
as bricks, stones, sand and labour
 Encouraging members to send children to school
 contributing ideas to the teaching and learning programmes
 monitoring the discipline of school children both within and outside the school
 establishing and sustaining the school as a social service
Curriculum barriers
The Kenyan school curriculum is inappropriate in that there is ;
 inadequate educational facilities, equipment and services for children SNE

 inadequate trained personnel who use rigid teaching approaches which ,may only benefit
the average learner
 almost no provision for educating some groups of SNE learners e.g. Gifted and Talented
and those living under difficult circumstances
 Irrelevant and overloaded content
 Rigid assessment procedures based on mean score completion which does not consider
SNE learners.
 Inflexibility of the curriculum where learners are exposed to same content and National
examinations.
 Rigid assessment or evaluation criteria are too much exam oriented.
Rigid Educational approaches, evaluation and promotion criteria
 Poor quality teacher training in which there is lack of long term professional
development. In- service training for teachers is rarely planned for teachers in regular
schools.
 Teachers use methods that aim at the average learners
 Basing evaluation of academic success on terminal examinations such as end of primary
or secondary examinations rather than on the covered learning activities
Insufficient / lack of resources

Since the coming of free and compulsory primary education the government has the
responsibility
OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

The following may help overcome the barriers
1. Flexible and child centered curriculum
2. considering learners diversity
3. developing educational and legal policies that enhance inclusion
4. Early identification and intervention
5. Flexibility and diversity of educational approaches
6. Availability of human and material resources
7. Sensitization of the community on Special needs

8. Availing funds for inclusive education
9. Education reforms


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PSY 1110: INCLUSIVE EDUCATION GUIDE NOTES

LECTURERS: DR. JANET NABISWA

COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

BARRIERS TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

A few of the above listed barriers are explained below:

Unfriendly learning environment and school related factors

COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

Delayed Identification and Intervention

Learner Factors (severity, onset and nature)

 Whether disability is mild, moderate, severe or profound

Negative Attitudes of teachers, parents and other stakeholders

Poor Community Involvement

COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

 inadequate educational facilities, equipment and services for children SNE

Rigid Educational approaches, evaluation and promotion criteria

Insufficient / lack of resources

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

COMPLETE PSY 1110 NOTES FOR 2024/2025 COHORT. COURSE LECTURERS:

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