PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ PREPAREDNESS TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
Keywords:
Inclusive education, Pre-service teachers’ attitude, Pre-service teachers’ knowledge, Pre-service teachers’ training, Programme developmentAbstract
Inclusive education is an educational practice that is built towards making everybody to be active member of society. To attain its desire vision, stakeholders like teachers must take active roles. In view of this, this study investigated pre-service teachers’ preparedness towards inclusive education. Descriptive survey research design was employed. A total of 791 pre-service final year teachers were purposively selected from eight institutions in southern and eastern parts of Nigeria based on their consent. Inclusion Preparedness Inventory (IPI) was employed to collect data with reliabilities of 0.87 and 0.76 respectively measuring attitude and knowledge of pre-service teacher. Results indicated high knowledge and improved attitudes. It also revealed significant difference in knowledge and attitude between university and college of education pre-service teachers with no significant influence on gender. It was recommended that curriculum of teacher education should be re-engineered towards making teachers to be more dynamic and functional in classroom situation.
