Assessment of Factors Affecting Academic Performance of Children with Disabilities in Primary Schools of the Disabled, Wakiso District.

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing factors affecting academic performance of children with disabilities in primary schools of disabled children in Wakiso District. The main concern was Poor academic performance in the final exams that denies a child admission to higher level, resulting to large numbers of school drop outs amongst disabled children. The sampled schools included government and private, making a total of 19 schools out of which 17 were surveyed. The target sample size was 390, however 318 were sampled. The sample size studied was got by using simple random sampling and purposive sampling. Findings show that the general academic performance of learners with special needs is below average and a number of children of this category rarely complete primary seven due to several challenges they encounter as they try to acquire education. Findings included and concluded that: - type of disability, in this case mental retardation was the most common type, availability of school needs to the pupils, attention given to the learners, the more attention they are given by the teachers, the more they understand in class and the better they academically perform. These significantly affected academic performance of children with disabilities in primary schools of Wakiso district. The study concludes that, children with disabilities face a number of challenges which act as barriers to their learning and development. However these challenges vary from one child to another, depending on the type of disability. Assessment and evaluation system should be revised, looking at individual children not generalizing them. Ministry of Sports and Education and stake holders should play a leading role in this. The researcher recommends that, further research should be done on how to reduce poor academic performance of children with special needs and the impact of school dropout and non completion of school of children with special needs on society.