Abstract:
Despite education being one of the basic human rights and an empowerment prerequisite, there are various factors that affect the provision of quality education in inclusive public primary schools in Kenya. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teacher characteristic on pupil’s academic performance in KCPE in inclusive classroom in public primary schools in Narok North sub-County in Narok County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to assess; the effect of teacher’s attitude, teacher’s training, teacher’s knowledge of inclusive education and teacher’s perception of school environment on academic performance of pupils with special needs in the inclusive classes. The study adopted a descriptive survey design and targeted a population of the 507 teachers, 4 Quality Assurance and Standards Officers and 983 class 7 and 8 pupils from 55 public primary schools. The study selected 202 respondents constituting 98 pupils, 100 teachers and head teachers and 4 QUASOS. The study used simple random to select the teachers and the pupils while purposive sampling was used to select the head teachers. The study used an Interview schedule for the QUASOs staff and two sets of questionnaires for the teachers and the pupils. A pilot study was conducted in two primary schools and the data collected used in testing the validity and reliability of the questionnaires. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of 0.716 and 0.784 was obtained for the teachers and pupils questionnaires respectively. Data collected using the questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentages which were computed by the aid of the statistical package for social sciences. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to establish the relationship between the variables. The results were presented using tables and charts. The findings showed that school environment had the highest effect on the academic performance of the pupils with special needs in inclusive classrooms followed by teachers’ attitude; teachers training and teacher’s knowledge of inclusive. The study concluded that the four factors of teachers’ attitude, teachers’ training, teachers’ knowledge and teachers’ perception of school environment influenced academic performance of learners with special needs in inclusive primary schools. The study recommends that schools should enhance the environment to be able to accommodate all learners and this will improve their academic performance. There is need for policy makers to formulate policies that will address the learning environment, teachers training and attitudes in order to allow for inclusion. The results of the study are expected to be of great significance to the policy makers in education as it shall shed light on how to improve academic performance of pupils with special needs in inclusive public primary schools in Kenya.
