International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume VI, Issue XI, November 2022|ISSN 2454-6186
Roseline Onego
PhD. in Public Administration and Management, Kampala International University (KIU), Kenya
Abstract: Education is a basic human right and an essential means of recognizing other privileges. One of the hurdles to access a better life for People Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) is the value of their education in comparison with their counterparts without disabilities. The inclusion of persons with disabilities is critical to the realization of international goals, notably, the Sustainable Development Goal, (SDG) which includes explicit references to PLWD. Providing effective academic services for Students Living with Disabilities (SLWDs) remains a difficult process in higher education despite the critical need. Thus, this work sought to assess the contributions of resource availability in addressing the plight of SLWDs in public universities in Kenya. Content validity was established through expert judgment while reliability was established through Cronbach Alpha. The study was founded on the Social Model (SM) and adopted cross sectional survey design. Using a sample size of 6 public universities, 6 students’ leaders for SLWDS, 6 staff coordinators and 384 students living with disabilities sampled through multistage and purposive sampling. Quantitative data was collected from the SLWDs using questionnaires while qualitative data from the coordinators was collected using an interview guide. An observation guide was used for triangulation. The study findings showed that availability of resources significantly influenced the educational inclusion of the SLWDs (significance level = .049). It concludes that educational needs for SLWDs can be realized with the same rights as their counterparts without challenges if the required resources are mobilized and well allocated. The study recommended the need for the government to address the issue of resource base through consultative processes that involve the main educational stakeholders and the learners. The University management through the disability coordinators and education stakeholders need to undertake the process of providing affordable assistive technologies for the SLWDs.
Key Words: Resource availability, Educational inclusion, SLWDs, Social Model, Public Universities
I. INTRODUCTION
The Salamanca Conference emphasized on the need to prioritize funding as a mechanism for fostering the inclusion of SLWDs in higher learning and encouraged the international community to give the highest policy and budgetary priority to improve their educational systems to enable them to include all children regardless of individuals’ differences and difficulties (UNESCO 1994). Research shows that there is Worldwide, dramatic decline in government subsidies to universities and in contrast an increase in student fees which have negatively impacted on the functioning of universities (Chiwandire & Vincent, 2019). It has been noted