Problems And Challenges Of Inclusive Education

Inclusive education has been a hot topic not only in Sierra Leone but also in the world in general.Profounder and even many supporters,as well as specialists in education,have been putting enough effort to make sure that all children get educated in the mainstream of particular countries' education system.Internationals,from Millennium Development Goals(MDG's)to Sustainable Development Goals(SDG's),it has been declared that right to education should be granted to every child regardless their different factors such as disabilities,economic factors as well as social factors.In different countries such as Sierra Leone,history tells the fact that for a long-time people who are now called special people like disabled as well as girls have been missing the opportunities to education because of the cultural beliefs that the societies have towards them.To show concern over this,the government of Sierra Leone introduced inclusive education practices where both disabled and other healthy children study together.There is also a core-education system,where both girls' and boys' study in the same classroomThis study aimed to investigate issues on inclusive education and teacher`s attitude on students with disability in general class,taking a case study of basic education in Sierra Leone.It adopted the mixed research method,where both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed.A sample population of 100 teachers from an organized workshop by SFA in Bo,Sierra Leone,took part in the questionnaire for the quantitative analysis,and 10 teachers also decided to participate in the interview for qualitative analysis.The study used sequential explanatory method to examine the relationship that exists between the variables(educational background,teaching experience,gender and age)and the teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education for all the students with disabilities in Sierra Leone by the time.Data were collected over a period of two months in the quantitative stage,and participants were asked to respond to 27 questions during the interview,which were divided into six part,namely: Demographic,Teachers Training and Development,Behaviour in classroom,Societal Attitudes,Involvement of parents,Support from government.Each of the parts was used to determine teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education in Sierra Leone.In the qualitative phase of this particular study,several questions were developed to make sure that they address the issues covered in the very interview which was meant to last for 30 minutes.Questions which were developed were open-ended and for this case,allowed for the gathering of information that was to be used to substantiate data which was collected in the interview.This was meant to ascertain the current socio-economic realities of disabled children in Sierra Leone as the chosen country.The analysis of the data was done using descriptive statistics(frequencies,percentages,means,standard deviations and tables)after editing and coding the response categories.The researcher used descriptive statistics to summarize many numbers included in the database into fewer numbers that described the entire sets of data.The study used frequency counts to provide the number of times each variable represented in the database with the use of percentages which enables comparisons between groups of different sizes.The results were reported in tables and figures which expressed them in a descriptive manner that is easily understood to facilitate comparisons.About whether parents are happy about inclusive education of their children with disabilities,48% of the respondents agreed,and the sample of teachers who were interviewed had a negative attitude towards inclusive education of children with Disabilites in Sierra Leone.Some teachers strongly believed that students were totally not benefitting from the on-going inclusive education in the country due to the lack of professional training for teachers,reduced parental involvement,societal attitudes regarding children with disabilities,and limited to non-government support.