Instructional Supervision and Inclusion Of Learners With Special Needs in Primary School Education in Kenya

Abstract

The concept of Inclusion is to have every child in a learning institution where the environment should adapt to the learner to facilitate personalized learning. Globally, children with disabilities experience difficulties in learning and are traditionally marginalized in and out of the schools. The inclusion of learners with special needs in education in public primary schools has been a major challenge to stakeholders in education sector in Kenya since independence. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of instructional supervision on inclusion of learners with special needs in education in public primary schools in Mbooni East and West sub-counties, Kenya. The study used educational production theory and the descriptive survey design. It involves collecting data by interviewing or administering questionnaires to a sample of individuals. The targeted population was (N=1896) who included 204 public primary headteachers, 1632 public primary schools' teachers, 60 parents from units only, and 2 Education Officers.  A sample size of 196 respondents participated consisting of 23 public primary headteachers, 163public primary school teachers and six (6) parents. Data that was obtained from questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively using SPSS version 23 while data obtained from interviews were thematically analyzed. The null hypothesis was tested using independent t-test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that there     was no statistically significant mean difference between head teachers’ frequency of instructional supervision and inclusion of learners in primary school education since all the calculated p-values were greater than standard p-value 0.05 thus rejecting the null hypothesis. Results from Instructional supervision (P-value=0.047< P-value= 0.05), showed statistically significant mean difference between instructional supervision and inclusion in public primary schools in Mbooni East and West sub-counties, Kenya. The study concludes that teachers do not approve the headteachers’ instructional supervision hence the poor implementation of inclusion in Mbooni East and West sub-counties, Kenya. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education, considers issues on infusion of instructional supervision in SNE training, for implementation of inclusion.