Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in Ghana: A Mixed-Method Study of Potential Collaboration between Education and Social Work

Abstract

To satisfy the global commitment of creating equal opportunities and providing quality education to children with disabilities in regular schools, Ghana, a Sub-Saharan African Country ratified and implemented proclamations and conventions on inclusive education. This enabled the country to define her strategic path towards educating children with special needs comprising children with disabilities in regular schools. Years after, research evidence has revealed significant challenges to the successful implementation of an inclusive education programme. Despite the plenteous research evidence on the challenges, little has been done on ways to address the setbacks hindering the successful inclusion of children with disabilities in inclusive schools in Ghana. Drawing on insights from the critical realist paradigm, the rights-based approach to education, and the multidimensional model of disability, this study examines these setbacks under the advanced theme of the extent of creating equitable access and providing quality education for children with disabilities in mainstream/regular schools in Ghana. Further, it assesses a potential collaboration between education and social work towards the creation of equal opportunities for children with disabilities in inclusive education in Ghana.

The concurrent triangulation mixed method, a cross-sectional survey, and a case study with thematic analysis were employed. Likewise, the study used a multi-stage sampling technique to recruit participants for the quantitative inquiry, while a purposive sampling aided the identification of eligible participants for the qualitative approach. The study collected a triangulated data from two broad categories of participants; school-based (students with a disability, non-disabled students, teachers, and resource teachers) and non-school-based (social workers and policymakers) using in-depth interviews, focus group and survey questionnaires. Participants for the quantitative study include; school-based n=706 and non-school-based n=301; while the in-depth interview, comprising both the school and non-school based n=51). Descriptive statistics were used to examine the perspectives of the school-based participants about the extent of inclusion while non-parametric tests were employed to investigate differences in the perceptions of the school-based participants. Ultimately, the study used partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to determine the relative importance of socio-cultural, environmental and resources toward the inclusion of children with disabilities and further to determine the predictive ability of resilience and academic motivation on the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream/regular schools.

The results show that children with disabilities are barely satisfied, non-disabled students are moderately satisfied while teachers are satisfied with the levels of inclusion in regular schools in Ghana. There was also a significant association between the participants and their level of satisfaction with inclusion. Teachers recorded high mean scores on all dimensions of inclusion; non-disabled students had high scores for most of the dimensions except for resources mobilisation in the schools. In contrast, children with disabilities had lower scores on all the indicators of inclusion due to setbacks emanating from socio-cultural, resources, environmental and deficiencies in implementing Ghana’s inclusive education policy. Nevertheless, the results show that children with disabilities are highly resilient based on capabilities, control and persistence, spiritual influence and positive acceptance and secured relationships. Besides, the participants overwhelmingly supported the establishment of a collaborative working partnership between education and social work in the practice of inclusive education in Ghana.

Moreover, common generalist social work practitioner roles such as counselling, advocacy, education, sensitisation and supervision emerged as key contributions of social workers in advancing inclusive education practice in Ghana. The findings suggest that social workers serve to bridge the gap between children with disabilities and challenges facing inclusive education in Ghana. The findings further underscore the need to emphasise the rights of children with disabilities to equitable access and quality education. These findings support the adoption of a multidimensional and a collaborative support model to resolve cross-cutting problems facing inclusive education for children with disabilities in Ghana. The model further emphasises linkages between class teachers, resource/inclusive education teachers, parents, and social workers in the practice of inclusive education in Ghana.

Date of Award	28 Aug 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Hau Lin Cherry TAM (Supervisor)