Capacity Development for Effective Implementation of Inclusive Education in Ghana’s Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Effective implementation of Ghana‘s policy on inclusive education in higher education institutions demands capacity building for the educators to understand diversity and differentiate teaching to accommodate the learning needs of students living with disability. This study investigated how inclusive education is practiced in one university in Ghana by exploring the level of educators’ awareness of Ghana‘s policy on inclusive education and how the educators understand the policy and are interpreting the policy in the lecture halls. The study adopted the quantitative-qualitative research design to solicit data via self-administered questionnaire and interview from a purposive sample of 37 (32 males, 5 females) lecturers in four academic departments of the University that were implementing inclusive education. It emerged from the study that not all the educators were fully aware of the content of Ghana‘s Inclusive Education Policy. In addition, they also understood the policy differently. The educators generally interpreted disability in terms of the social and medical models of disability found in the literature. To synchronize the notion of disability among the educators and to enable them to appreciate the need for differentiated instruction in inclusive education demands effective capacity development. This could promote university lecturers adopting effective strategies to address the learning needs of students with disability in higher education.