TEACHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM; PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' PREPARATION FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN GHANA

Abstract

Children with disabilities and Special Needs Education in Ghana are mainly trained in special schools. Those found in mainstream classrooms are continually sidelined, segregated, abused and discriminated against. To change from segregated form for children with disabilities to inclusiveness, Ghana has set 2015/2016 academic year for the beginning of the implementation of inclusive education. This research was conducted to establish how Teacher Education Curriculum prepares pre-service teachers for inclusive education in Ghana. 6 pre-service teachers selected from Kumasi Metro schools and a master sampled from one college of education were involved in the study. The SNE curriculum for the training of pre-service teachers was reviewed to establish its suitability for the professional preparation of pre-service teachers to operate in inclusive environment. The research was guided by constructionist qualitative method and semi-structured interview guide was used as the measurement instrument. The results of the study has shown that the content of the curriculum is designed to train teachers for special schools and fails to adequately and competently prepare pre-service teachers to handle children with special educational needs especially children with social, emotional and behavioural disorders in inclusive classroom. As a result, serious efforts are needed to review the content of the curriculum and design inclusive-based one which contains best practised proper and sufficient inclusive programmes to professionally and adequately prepare pre-service teachers for effective inclusive education implementation in the country.