Perceived barriers to educating children with disabilities may be physical, social or financial. Some barriers include the following:
Policy and system factors
• Discriminatory policy actually segregates children with disabilities and prevents them from attending school or professional training, including teaching
• No specific policy on disability or education of children with disabilities
• Policy is dated and inappropriate or based on a medical approach to disability
• Reasonable policy is in place but not implemented, poor resource allocations to education for the disabled
• Limited training of teachers in working with children with disabilities, no incentives for teachers to do so
• Poor identification and screening services
• Poor school support services, limited or no resources for schools
Social and community factors
• The greatest barriers to inclusion are caused by society not by medical
impairments
• Social stigma and negative parental attitudes to disability which may arise out of religious and cultural beliefs e.g. disability may be seen as punishment
• Parental resistance to inclusive education for special groups
• Normal barriers such as cost of uniforms, transport
etc apply equally or more to disabled children, particularly the poor school factors
• Low school budgets resulting in a lack of appropriate facilities, inaccessible school buildings, high pupil to teacher ratios, limited support for children with disabilities
• Teachers have inadequate training in inclusive methodologies and can not deal with the range of children with disabilities.
• Limited awareness of disability among teachers and school staff
Comments
This post is very relevant now that we are in a transition period between the old 8.4.4 and the competence based curriculum. I hope the implementers will be keen enough on children with disabilities and seek sustainable and inclusive solutions to challenges identified.