RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CURRICULUM CONTENT MANAGEMENT AND TRANSITION OF PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL LEARNERS WITH DISABILITIES TO SECONDARY SCHOOL IN KENYA

Abstract

Access to quality education and transition from one level to another has been a major focus of the Kenya Government to speed up individual and national development. While the rate of learners transiting from primary to secondary school has been on an upward trend, transition of learners with disabilities has remained low over the years. The Government has established several legal initiatives and mobilized resources to address this challenge. Most recent of these initiatives is introduction of special needs education policy framework of 2009 which among other provisions emphasized review and adaptation of curriculum to suit the disability limitations of learners. Despite the legal mitigations and resource mobilization by the Government, transition to secondary school for learners with disabilities has remained below 30% compared to the typical peers whose transition has been increasing to above 92% currently. This study sought to address the gap by determining the relationship between curriculum content management and transition to secondary school for public primary school learners with disabilities in Kenya. The research employed descriptive research design and a sample of 340 respondents to represent a population of 3210 subjects. The data obtained in the study was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation with the aid of a statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21. Findings to the study revealed that curriculum content management had significant impact on transition to secondary school for public primary school learners with disabilities. Special needs education teachers were expected to implement the mainstream primary school curriculum in the special needs classrooms. The lessons time allowed by the Ministry of education was too short to implement the planned lesson content on learners with learning disabilities. The time allocated for exams and language used was unsuitable to the learners. As a result, the learners’ outcomes and transition to secondary school was inhibited. Based on the findings, the study recommends that the Ministry of Education through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development should establish a curriculum that is adaptable to the disabled learners which will enhance effective planning of teaching-learning activities and addressing learning needs of every disabled learner by the teacher. Article visualizations: