The Arduous March toward Inclusive Education in Tanzania: Head Teachers' and Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how inclusive education was being practiced in Tanzanian primary schools. The study mainly dealt with the inclusion of students with disabilities. Qualitative research was used to collect information from head teachers and teachers. Head teachers were interviewed, and teachers were involved in focus-group discussions. Participants included fifty-two teachers from ten inclusive primary schools. The results of this study strongly suggested that the inclusive schools were faced with barriers that hindered effective implementation of inclusive education. Those impediments included an inaccessible physical infrastructure, the same curriculum, untrained teachers, and a lack of teaching and learning materials. The majority of teachers did not support inclusive education on the ground that they had not been trained to implement it.