Academic and Social Conditions of Deaf Children in Inclusive Educational Setting: The Case of Selected Primary Schools of North Gondar Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

The general objective of this study was to assess the social and academic conditions of children who are deaf in inclusive educational setting. The study was conducted in three primary schools of North Gondar Zone such as Serko, Chuhit and Limatber. The participants of the study were deaf children, their hearing peers, special needs education teachers and school principals .12 deaf children, 5 special needs teachers, 6 school principals and 5 hearing children were the informants of the study. Interview, observation, focus group discussion (FGD), informal talks and document review were the data gathering instruments. The data collected through different instruments were analyzed qualitatively. The results revealed that the educational condition of deaf children found to be mixed; that is some respondents confirmed that the academic abilities and achievements of deaf children were better than their hearing classmates. On the other hand, the findings showed that that there are deaf children who perform low in their academic abilities and achievements as compared to their hearing equals. Therefore, the result showed that there was no significant difference between deaf children and that of their hearing peer with regard to academic abilities and achievement. With regard to the social relation of deaf children with their deaf equals, hearing peers and teachers, it was found out that they had better social interaction/ relations with all these groups of people both in and out of the classroom. Provision of inclusive education by unqualified teachers; lack of classroom and attention to inclusive education; lack of continuous professional development trainings regarding inclusive education and sign language were identified as major bottlenecks with respect to the implementation of inclusive education on deaf children in the school. Recommendations forwarded include: the professional capacity of special needs education teachers should be enhanced by the schools using series on the job trainings; the school should work more on sign language training and awareness raising trainings.

Keywords: Academic and social condition, inclusive educational setting, deaf children