Decade of Inclusive Education in Ghana: perspectives of educators

Opoku, Maxwell Peprah; Agbenyega, Joseph Seyram; Mprah, Wisdom Kwadwo; McKenzie, Judith; Badu, Eric

doi:10.36251/josi.114

Cited by 42 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Second, as expected, poverty was cited by participants as one of the main reasons for their inability to access education. This concurs with other studies (Danso et al, , ; Filmer, ; Kassah, ; Opoku et al, , Opoku, Mprah, Badu, Mckenzie & Agbenyega, ; UNICEF, ; WHO, ), which have reported that poverty and hostile physical environments restrict equitable participation in education by persons with disabilities. If Ghana is committed to improving the living conditions of persons with disabilities and encouraging their participation in productive activities, efforts should be made to facilitate their participation in education.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Poverty alleviation among persons with disabilities via United Nations' sustainable development goals in Ghana: Voices of stakeholders with disabilities

Opoku

Swabey

et al. 2018

Sustainable Development

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Consistently, it has been reported that persons with disabilities face multiple challenges in societies and thus it is important that deliberate intervention programs are initiated to empower them to overcome exclusion. The United Nations has taken the lead through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) project, which is a framework for assisting countries and donors in their efforts to alleviate poverty. This article documented the experiences of persons with disabilities with respect to global efforts towards poverty reduction via SDGs. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 48 individuals with disabilities (hearing loss n = 11, visual impairment n = 15, and physical disability n = 22) who were drawn from four districts in the Northern Region of Ghana. Analysis of the interview data revealed common themes related to hardship, poverty, limited access to education, and underemployment. The results indicated that the SDG project engendered little tangible improvement in the lives of persons with disabilities. The need for concerted efforts to address barriers faced by individuals with disabilities is discussed extensively.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Poverty alleviation among persons with disabilities via United Nations' sustainable development goals in Ghana: Voices of stakeholders with disabilities

Opoku

Swabey

et al. 2018

Sustainable Development

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“…Also, the evidence focused largely on the general disability population, with relatively no study targeting students. The search of the literature identified few studies that explore social service issues regarding students with disabilities in Ghana but addressed barriers in accessing inclusive education [34,[41][42][43]. No study has attempted to explore the accessibility of health services for students with disabilities, in the quest of achieving universal health coverage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of universal health coverage – highlighting the accessibility of health care to students with disabilities in Ghana: a qualitative study

Abodey

Vanderpuye

Mensah

et al. 2020

BMC Health Serv Res

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Background: Accessibility of health care to students with disabilities is a global concern. This is no less important in Ghana, however, to date, no study has been undertaken regarding access to health care to students with disabilities. This study, therefore, aims to explore the accessibility of health care to students with disabilities, in the quest of achieving universal health coverage in Ghana. Methods: Qualitative methods, involving in-depth interviews were employed to collect data from 54 participants (29 students with disabilities, 17 health workers and 8 school mothers), selected through purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The study identified three themesaccessibility, adequacy, and affordability. The study findings highlighted that universal health coverage for students with disabilities has not been achieved due to barriers in accessing health care. The barriers faced by students with disabilities were unfriendly physical environments, structures, equipment, limited support services and poor health insurance policy to finance health care. Conclusion: The study concludes that the government should prioritize disability-related issues in health policy formulation, implementation and monitoring. The current provisions and requirements in the disability act should be prioritized, enforced and monitored to ensure adequate inclusion of disability issues in health services. Further, the current exemption policy under the National Health Insurance Scheme should be revised to adequately address the needs of people with disabilities.

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“…A number of studies confirm that teachers in SSA countries report that resources (i.e. funding, facilities and aids) are fundamental to support learning and that without such resources they would not be able to help students with disabilities (Arrah & Swain, 2014;Opoku et al, 2015;2017a;2017b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusive Education Without Resources: A Policy Approach for Sub-Sahara Africa

Opoku¹

2020

Developing Teaching and Learning in Africa: Decolonising Perspectives

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Slee, 2001). This all-inclusive understanding is essential in sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries (i.e. Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania), as they lack funds, have shortages of specialist services, and more importantly, there are very few special schools and professional/clinical support facilities. However, the question-to what extent can inclusive education as an overarching framework come to support students without external resources-has not been addressed clearly and thus requires urgent exploring. More specifically, the challenge for inclusive education in SSA countries: To what extent can curriculum, personal experiences, and learning environments be adapted, changed and improved to cater for the needs of students with disabilities with little or no resources? The fundamental question that this chapter aims to tackle is, to what extent can students with disabilities be supported at all levels of schooling (i.e. systems, student, and curriculum) without external resources? Perhaps, a starting place to explore this concept is to understand how inclusive education is defined in terms of policies and operational practices within SSA countries, and then to examine how inclusive education is contextualised to assist students with disabilities within the SSA context. Ghana's Inclusive Education policy is described in terms of "… ensuring access and learning for all children: especially those disadvantaged from linguistic, ethnic, gender, geographic or religious minority, from an economically impoverished background as well as children with special needs including those with disabilities…" (Republic of Ghana, 2015:7). The principle concept of 'ensuring' and 'access' appear to be intricately reliant on external resources (i.e. funds and facilities)-the how, when and where are not clear, and move the focus away from capitalising on the student's strengths, abilities, and competencies. Further, the notion of 'providing' something implicitly seems to be embedded in resources. Importantly, there are no operational standard built-in to know how or whether 'ensuring' is effective or ineffective, which again inadvertently is related to resources and measurement? Importantly, very little attention is given to building or developing student strengths and abilities (J-F et al., 2017). In South Africa, the Education White Paper defines inclusive education as: […] acknowledging that all children and youth can learn and that all children and youth need support. Enabling education structures, systems and learning methodologies to meet the needs of all learners [...] Acknowledging and respecting differences in learners, whether due to age, gender, ethnicity, language, class, disability, HIV or other infectious diseases […]

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Decade of Inclusive Education in Ghana: perspectives of educators

Cited by 42 publications

References 18 publications

Poverty alleviation among persons with disabilities via United Nations' sustainable development goals in Ghana: Voices of stakeholders with disabilities

Poverty alleviation among persons with disabilities via United Nations' sustainable development goals in Ghana: Voices of stakeholders with disabilities

In search of universal health coverage – highlighting the accessibility of health care to students with disabilities in Ghana: a qualitative study

Inclusive Education Without Resources: A Policy Approach for Sub-Sahara Africa

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