How Education is

In this section, there are five (5) statements. Below is the table of findings:

Table 15: Responses to questionnaire section-How Education is

SN STATEMENT SD D N A SA

Interestingly, the patterns of results are tilted on the positive side although some pockets of negative responses exist. More positive are the results related to improved salaries and conditions of service and the existence of staff development programmes in the schools sampled.

The results in the statement with highest scores presented in the table was further analysed in terms of gender, age, position, and teaching experience.

Male participants registered proportionately higher positive attitudes than female respondents, who recorded 9%. (See figure 16).

Figure 16: Distribution of responses to the statement 'In our school all teachers have the opportunity to go for extra training to update themselves with recent trends,

developments and practice in education' by gender

100 r — :--- :--- ;

----90 ■

80 *

70 ■

60 ■

gender

strongly disagree neutral strongly agree

disagree agree

Teachers in the age range 31-40 years, indicated

proportionately more positive responses to the statement, 'in our school, teachers have the opportunity to go for extra training to update themselves with the recent trends, developments, and practice in education. Less positive

results were noted from both age ranges 25-30 and 41-50 years (See figure 17).

Figure 17: Distribution of responses to the statement 'In our school all teachers have the opportunity to go for extra training to update themselves with recent trends, developments and practice in education' by age

100

C/3(1) Wc

oQ.

W0

OU)

003

roc

0o

i_

CL0

under 25 years

I 125-30 years

31-40 years

|j:?vi41-50 years strongly disagree neutral

disagree

strongly agree agree

Class teachers scored proportionately more positive responses to the item 'In our school teachers have

opportunity to go for extra training to update themselves with the recent trends, developments, and practice in education'. (See figure 18).

Figure 18: Distribution of responses to statement 1In our school all teachers have opportunity to go for extra

training to update themselves with recent trends, developments, and practice in education' by position

100

80 ■

present position

H fh e a d te a c h e r

I Ideputrv headteacher

H i s e n i o r teacher

Iclasteacher

t lother strongly disagree neutral strongly agree

disagree agree

As regards to teaching experience, teachers with teaching experience 11-15 years, registered most positive results to the item below, followed by 1-5 and 6-10 years of teaching experience. The least opportunities for training were from teachers with over 16 years teaching experience (See figure 19):

Figure 19: Distribution of responses to the statement 'In our school all teachers have opportunity to go for extra training to update themselves with the recent trends, developments and practice in education' by teaching experience

1001 — 1

90 ■

80 '

70 ■

60 '

8 50' n n

w

Years of teaching ex

10 years

I lover 16 years strongly disagree neutral strongly agree

disagree agree

Discussion of the four themes

Before discussing the four themes, it is important to

emphasise the small sample size. Results have been compared in terms of percentages. However, in some cases 100%

represents one single person. Therefore, we may be discussing possible differences which, although not

significant in the pilot, may be worth exploring in the main study.

Gender

Gender was not found to be related to attitudes. In all the four themes, there were no significant differences between gender groups in attitudes towards inclusion for children with disabilities. On average males scored 12(52%) in the four dimensions (See figures, 2, 6, 11 and 16). This is a rather interesting finding because ordinarily, one would expect females to have more positive attitudes towards children with disabilities than males because of their

'taken for granted' warm and caring attribute. Females are known to be both empathetic and sympathetic to children and in particular, disabled children (Tembo, 2002). In fact even research seems to have tended to bring out this positive image of females. Obani's (1982) study to determine the attitudes of Nigerian teachers towards children with

disabilities found that females were more significantly more positive than males. In the present study, the lack of

difference in attitudes between males and females could be due to the fact that the female sample was small. Secondly, in cultural terms, males are more exposed to different views because they often get the opportunity to mix with others outside their communities. Another reason for the lack of differences and men's exposure to different views could be that most respondents were males as SADC countries seem to send more male teachers for further training in the United Kingdom than female teachers (See figures 2, 6, 11 and 16).

Age

Age was found to be related to attitudes towards the inclusion for children with disabilities in the general education classrooms. Overall, older participants tended to be more favourable towards inclusion than younger. However, the difference is not very high. Such a scenario is probably not surprising because older respondents have more

experience in life than young ones. They have been exposed to more children with disabilities than young respondents.

The more positive picture probably reflects reality more closely because for respondents who trained in the 1980s, their,curriculum included aspects of special needs, and this could have had an effect on their attitudes. Whether this was the case in all teachers' training colleges is difficult to tell. In the current study, respondents in the age band 31-40 years recorded more positive attitudes followed by those in the age band 41-50 years. The least are those under 25 years.

Position

Overall, all participants in the current study, irrespective of position, responded favourably towards inclusion for

children with disabilities. This seems to indicate that participants are willing to work with pupils with

disabilities. This finding is in agreement with earlier studies which examined primary teachers' attitudes towards inclusion for children with disabilities in general

education classrooms (Weltzien, 1997) and is consistent with results from studies by Ndawi (1994) in Tanzania and

Kasonde-Ng'andu & Moberg, (2001), in Zambia.

Teaching Experience

The pilot study revealed that there may be a potential relationship between teaching experience and attitudes towards inclusion of children with disabilities. It was

found that participants with more years of teaching have more positive attitudes than those with fewer years. This is

supported by Galis (1994) whose research indicates that teachers with more years of teaching experience have

generally more positive attitudes about the potential of the inclusion for children with disabilities. Those with fewer years of teaching experience express lower support for inclusion for children with disabilities and are less

positive about the practice and feasibility of inclusion. In this study, respondents with between 11-15 years of teaching experience indicated more favourable attitudes followed by those with over 16 years of teaching. The:least positive were those with 6-10 years of teaching (See figures 5 and

9) .