The Provision of Support Services to Mainstream Class Teachers by School Management Teams: A Case of Johannesburg Independent Schools (original) (raw)
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Support Services and Mainstream Schools
2005
Support services from school management teams play a critical role in empowering teachers to effectively teach students with learning disabilities in their mainstream classes. More so, constant engagement and support from school authorities help shape the direction and scope of inclusive education in the school. The study was aimed at establishing the extent to which School Management Teams (SMTs) of Johannesburg South District independent schools avail themselves to the mainstream class teachers for extra supports and services. The results of the study indicate that teachers in independent mainstream schools are left alone to carry the burden of teaching those with learning disabilities yet they lack in skills to differentiate the instruction in their mainstream classes. Furthermore, the results of the study also indicated that school principals are primarily interested in the improvement of their annual assessment outcomes which guarantee them funding from Government at the expense of the promotion of quality education for those with learning disabilities. The study was conducted through the qualitative research methodology. This was particularly so because the researcher wanted to use the phenomenological design which sought to uncover what the teachers are experiencing in relation to the support they are receiving from their school management teams. The sample of the participants included teachers who are currently teaching in Johannesburg independent schools. Critical theory was used in this study.
Koers - Bulletin for Christian Scholarship, 2016
Inclusive education forms the ethos of the education system in South Africa and resonates with the Constitution of the country, which recognises diversity and resists exclusivity. Inclusive education is also reflected in education policies such as the Education White Paper 6: Special Education-Building an Inclusive Education and Training System and the Screening, Identification, Assessment and Support (SIAS) document. Pivotal to inclusive education is the provision of support for all learners and teachers. The focus of this paper is on the functionality of all the formal support structures that are in place for teachers and learners from the teachers' viewpoints. These support structures include District-Based Support Teams (DBSTs), Institutional-Level Support Teams (ILSTs), Full-Service Schools (FSS), Special Schools as Resource Centres (SSRC), Learning Support Educators (LSEs) and the community. An interpretive research paradigm was chosen, using convenience sampling and data was collected by means of focus group interviews. Constant comparative data analysis was employed. Peer review and member checks were used to ensure trustworthiness. The themes that emerged were support provided by teachers, the role of official support structures and special schools and community collaboration. It was evident, from the teachers' point of view, that the formal support structures are not as effective as proposed by policy and educational authorities and that the policy needs serious reconsideration .
International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2011
Since the move towards inclusion in line with international trends and South Africa’s attempts to address issues of marginalisation and discrimination amongst all learners, including those with special needs and disabilities, it has become evident on perusal of various research studies and reviews that there is an obsession with how far we have come since the introduction of an inclusive education policy in 2001 which formalises a strategy to ensure increased access and support for all learners within the system, including those with special needs and disabilities. There is an inherent assumption that we have not arrived as yet, and research suggests a continuing scepticism and lack of confidence amongst educators in mainstream settings to support children with disabilities in their schools and classrooms. This article focuses on research which shows that learners with disabilities are in fact being successfully included within one of these mainstream schools, by default and with a range of available support, despite not being designated as a ‘full‐service school’. The study is based on interviews with students with physical disabilities in a Black rural secondary school, as well as observations and interviews with staff and non‐disabled students. Findings reveal an existence of teacher, peer and community support, including from a neighbouring special school, suggesting a notion of inclusion which was about naturally putting values into action. Such practice, I argue, remains obscure and off the policy radar in South Africa.
2020
The study sought to establish the effectiveness of the inclusion of teachers with physical disabilities in the teaching and learning situation in Bulawayo Metropolitan province schools. It was guided by the theoretical framework of Bronfenbrenner’s social ecological systems theory. The mixed methods approach with case study were used to enable an in-depth exploration of purposively snowballed Bulawayo Metropolitan province schools. Questionnaire and interview were employed for generating interim and thematic analyzed data. This study revealed that teachers with disabilities were given minimal opportunities by schools thereby affecting their inclusion and effective curriculum implementation. Negative attitude, limited teaching aids, lack of funds and discrimination, stereotyping and stigmatization were some of the main challenges diluted the effectiveness of the inclusion ofteachers with disabilities in the teaching and learning situation in schools.The study recommended that there i...
Developing a support programme for teachers involved with inclusion in South Africa
… of Special Education, 2001
The establishment of an inclusive education system in South Africa will require the development of appropriate support services at both a school and district level. Recent policy documents in South Africa propose that such a support system should take a systemic approach utilising district support teams that focus on management and personnel support rather than providing direct face to face interventions for individual learners. This paper discusses the development of a support program that is based on research findings regarding the aspects of inclusion that mainstream class teachers in South Africa find most stressful and how they best cope with this stress. It is posited that by addressing the specific stressors associated with inclusion teachers will have an enhanced sense of efficacy and be more enthusiastic about participating in inclusive classrooms.
Inclusive Education endeavors to makeregular schoolsacccesssible for all school going children without discrimination in line with the EFA goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) No. 2 of Universal Education, the World Declaration on Education for All adopted in Jomtien Thailand (1990) and the World Conference on Special Needs Education in Salamanca Spain (UNESCO, 1994). Currently, most developed Countries have invested heavily in inclusive Education by providing teaching/learning facilities and training manpower. Asia, North East India, and Papua New Guinea have continued to show that inclusive Education does work well. However, most sub-Saharan Africa countries still haven"timplemented inclusive Education. This could attributed to financial constraints and lack of awareness on the need to academically empower children with Special Needs as well as inadequate trained personnel in SNE (UNESCO, 2008). In Kenya for instance, though the Government of Kenya (GoK) has enacted varous pieces of legislation; TheDisability Act 14 of 2012 (GOK, 2008). The ACTstresses that no person/learning institution shall deny admission to a person with a disability by reason only of such disability,the Sessional paper 1 of 2005 which emphasizes the need to have inclusive education (GoK, 2005) and the new Constitution(2010) which envisages inclusive Education infree Basic Education(GoK, 2010; Tororei, 2009), many school age going children are not still enrolled in schools though its expectedthat every child irrespective of gender, disability, and race has a right to attain basic Education in Kenya. To achieve this, there is need to create awareness to school managers on the educational, social and adoptive problems that affect learners with special needs and how to support the program. Hence the need for this study to assess influence ofEducation Management Attitude onImplementation of Inclusive educationfor learners with Disabilities in regular primary schools in Sabatia Sub County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to:establish the attitude of the school managers on Inclusive Education andassess how availability of teaching/learning resources influenced the performance oflearners with disabilitiesin SabatiaSub County; Vihiga County Kenya.The study used mixed methodology design with concurrent triangulation. The target population was 226 which consisted of 105 head teachers, 105 teachers and 16 education officers. The sample was 48 participants composed of 22 head teachers, 22 teachers and 4 education officers. Sample was from 105 schools, composed of 98 public schools and 7 private schools and systematic random sampling was employed. The study used inclusive management theory, and production function input output model theory. Data instruments; questionnaires for teachers and interview schedule for education officers. Piloting was done in three schools involving 10 participants who were not included in the study. Quantitative data was presented in descriptive statistics using tables, means, standard deviation, and percentages. Inferential statistics used where; Pearson, chi-square and ANOVAin SPSS Version 22. The study revealed that there were inadequate teaching and learning materials for learners with special needs althoughmore than three quarters of the teachers held positive attitude towards LSN. It was recommended that there was need for more teacher collaboration, time and how inclusionprograms should take place in school systems and Ministry of Education should provide a special education funds vote in the Free Primary Education to procure adequate teaching/learning resources.
Learning together: The dynamics of training teachers for disability inclusion in South Africa
Frontiers in Education, 2022
Despite the need for inclusive education in South Africa, many teachers have not been appropriately trained for the inclusion process for learners with disabilities in classrooms. A consideration of teacher education for inclusive education involves examining both the structural and professional barriers to training that prevent effective implementation. We review the outcomes of a teacher education project in South Africa through three studies that emanate from Teacher Empowerment for Disability Inclusion (TEDI) at the University of Cape Town. These studies are a situation analysis; a survey of teacher education availability for working with learners with severe disabilities; and an evaluation of short courses. We draw on these studies to develop a holistic picture of the kind of training needed to develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills of teachers to address barriers to learning that arise from disability. This entails a conceptual analysis of how the different elements of training work together to address learner needs.
2011
Since a democratic dispensation in South Africa in 1994, the country has been immersed in processes of social, economic, political, and educational transfonnation aimed at entrenching principles of social justice and inclusion by foregrounding issues of equity, redress, quality education for all, equality of opportunity, and non-discrimination. The purpose of the current study was to listen to how teachers position themselves within socially constructed discourses of disability and inclusion in a mainstream setting that has integrated disabled learners. It further attempted to address the challenge of understanding ways in which teachers' constructions of their experiences of inclusion of disabled learners shape their professional lives, beliefs, and practices; and to interrogate contradictions, contestations and tensions embedded in these dominant discourses. In essence, the study sought to analyze the interactional dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. The research was conducted within a qualitative research paradigm, and took the fonn of a small-scale case study. The data collection techniques included in-depth semi-structured interviews, nonparticipant observations, and document analysis. Findings of the study revealed that teachers positioned themselves within discursive limits of dominant discourses. This was evident in how they constructed disabled learners as not meeting some pre-established standard of the discourse of nonnalcy. There was also evidence of policy-practice tensions in the voices of teachers regarding support provision and delivery of a 'curriculum for all'. It can be concluded that although significant steps had been taken to include disabled learners, most of these arrangements were still located within the limits of dominant discourses of deficiency, deficit and pathology. The findings point to the fact that, in essence, the education system does not examine the ideological, political, and economic "needs" of learners with disability within the context of inclusion. This supports the arguments put forth by Sayed (2002) that inclusion and exclusion are not simply bipolar processes. Inclusion in itself presents problems of co-option and control and does not imply that people are not excluded. The act of inclusion begs the question of what the included have become included in, on whose tenns, and what new exclusions the act of inclusion presents for them. IV GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS Anatomy and physiology of an education institution: the ideological, social, economic and political workings of an education institution. Apartheid: fonner official policy in South Africa of discriminating against and keeping apart people on the basis of their racial identities by the enactment of law of parliament. Barriers to learning and participation: factors which lead to the inability of the system to accommodate diverse learning needs, which often leads to learning breakdown or which prevent learners from accessing educational provision. Care-giver: any person other than a parent or guardian, who factually cares for a child. Child: a person under the age of eighteen years. Compulsory education: education that should be received by a learner from the first school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of seven years until the last school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of fifteen years or the ninth grade, whichever comes first.
Journal of the Social Sciences
The policy of Inclusive Education (IE) in White Paper 6 (2001) acknowledges that all children can learn with support, and this paper emanates from research into the experiences of learning support teachers (LSTs) in supporting Foundation Phase teachers in implementing IE in Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is envisaged that the implementation of IE in South African schools would require well-planned district as well as school level support services, more than just accepting learners with different learning needs in mainstream classrooms. Many teachers have not had the benefit of being trained to teach learners who experience barriers to learning, hence most find it difficult. Although specialist teachers in the form of LSTs have been employed in the Foundation Phase to fill that gap and assist classroom teachers, the learners may not be receiving the assistance that they are hoping for. Based on an assumption that the failings may largely be systemic, the authors used Bronferbrenner's ecological systems theory and a qualitative research design to examine the implementation of IE in selected schools, with seven LSTs being interviewed and observed, while documents pertaining to the support rendered were analyzed. Analysis employed Creswell's method. Findings highlighted factors affecting implementation of IE, which include inadequate district support, socio-cultural issues, classroom and management factors, lack of resources and inadequate collaboration between the stakeholders. The study makes recommendations and suggests further areas of research.