HPROMOTING INCLUSIVE SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION IN A PERIOD OF SOCIO-POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES AND MEASURES FOR IMPROVEMENT

The study investigated the promotion of inclusive secondary education in a period of socio-political uncertainty in Anambra State. Two research questions and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 264 principals of public secondary schools in Anambra State. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researchers. The instrument was validated by experts in the department of Educational Management and Policy. The reliability test on the instrument yielded coefficient values of.76 for cluster 1 and .80 for cluster 2. The overall reliability coefficient for the entire questionnaire was found to be .78. Mean, standard deviations and t-test was used to analyze data. The findings of the study revealed that inadequate funding of secondary schools, lack of political will to implement government policies on inclusive education, inadequate instructional resources, high rate of corruption among educational administrators and lack of accurate data on special needs students among others are the challenges of promoting inclusive secondary education in a period of socio-political uncertainty in Anambra State. The finding of the study also revealed that providing support for teachers in the form of mentoring and professional development, introducing conflict resolution and peace education programmes in schools, restructuring school infrastructure to be inclusive, allocating sufficient resources to support inclusive education like funding for infrastructure and extensively carrying out policy reforms for inclusive education are the measures of promoting inclusive secondary education in a period of socio-political uncertainty in Anambra State. The researchers recommended that government at all levels should allocate more financial resources to secondary schools, especially during times of socio-political uncertainty among others.

Promoting, Inclusive Education, Socio-Political Uncertainty, Challenges, Measures,

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