EXPLORING GOVERNMENTAL COMMITMENT TO EXECUTE INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Mainly, the aim of the research was to explore the absence of governmental commitment and find out the structural barriers that hindered the execution of inclusive education in Ethiopia. Exclusionary issues that Ethiopian schools face today are highly related to ignorance and lack of commitment that stem from education authorities and even from teachers of students with disabilities. Subsequently, I employed qualitative approach under the hegemony of constructivism paradigm to locate where the barriers of inclusive education stemmed from. The hermeneutic design of the study enabled me to build knowledge about the barriers that hindered the execution of inclusive education from governmental commitment perspective. Using semi-structured interview and focus group discussion as instrument, I listened to personnel in the education system. Thereafter, the data analysis went by transcribing the recorded interview verbatim. Then, using the transcribed and chunked data, I mapped the range and nature of phenomena, created typologies and found out associations between themes with a view to provide explanations for the findings. The process of mapping and interpretation was also guided by the original research aims as well as by the themes that have emerged from the data themselves. The participants’ account witnessed and construing the data, therefore, the challenges to implement inclusive education ranged from the absence of mandatory national inclusive policy to the inconsistent data about children with disabilities. Finally, I have recommended collaborative effort among stakeholders to ensure inclusion of children with disabilities.

Keywords

• absence of inclusive policy
• children with disabilities
• execution
• inaccessibility
• inclusion
• inconsistent data
• governmental commitment
• structural problem