The Viability of Providing Adequate Inclusive Education Teachers Using Open and Distance Learning in Nigeria

Abstract

The importance of education to development of individuals, groups and a nation cannot be over emphasized. It is one thing for a government to make education available to its people and it is another thing to make it accessible. One of the important strategies through which education can be made accessible to all kinds of learners is by inclusion. Inclusive education refers to an approach where all learners including the special needs, disadvantaged and vulnerable children receive learning using the general education curriculum in the normal school setting. The idea is that all types of children irrespective of their challenges or needs should be accommodated in the neighborhood local schools. The question however is how adequately prepared are the teachers in such schools to handle inclusiveness appropriately and effectively. To ascertain their level of preparedness a qualitative study was conducted where the curriculum of teacher education was subjected to document review, and 20 teacher educators were purposefully selected and interviewed. To obtain the perspective from the beneficiaries a case study of a person with special need who went through inclusive education was also carried out. The result showed that the curriculum of teacher education does not address inclusiveness; as such most teachers are not adequately equipped to handle inclusive education. The few that have the training are grossly inadequate. It is recommended that the curriculum of teacher education should be reviewed to expose all prospective teachers to the skill of handling all types of learners. Open and distance learning can be used to close skill gap in inclusive education by training and upgrading in-service teachers and educators of pre-service teachers. // Paper ID 136