Abstract

The work title “Attitude of school administrators towards the education of persons with hearing impairment in The Buea Municipality”, it was carried out in the Buea Municipality. It examined three research questions which are: Are they certain things that teachers/students do that hurt students with hearing impairment in regular school? Does the environmental factor affect students with hearing impairment in regular schools? Do instructional materials have any effect on the education of the hearing impaired students in regular schools? Do the environmental factors affect students with visual impairment in regular schools? They sort to explore how the attitudes of school administrators have affected the education of hearing impaired students. The sampling technique used for the research was the simple random technique and a sample of 30 students was selected for the purpose of the study. The questionnaire was used as the research instrument for data collection. Data was analyzed using frequencies, percentages, averages. At the end of the study, it shows that the things that teachers/students do, do not negatively affect the education of hearing impaired students with a cumulative percentage of 50.5%, followed by how teaching learning materials do affect the education of students with hearing impairment with a cumulative percentage of 56.9% and how classroom setting affect the education of students with hearing impairment with a cumulative percentage of 86.6%. As a result, some recommendations were made to parents and teachers to encourage inclusive education. As this will boost the academic performance of the hearing impaired.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

This chapter will consist of background of the study, statement of the problems, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, operational definition of terms.

Education is one of the fundamental requirements for the development of every human being. It is only through education that one can develop his or her abilities, attitudes, values, skills, knowledge and other forms of behaviour that could help him survive in the environment and the society (Good, 1959). Consequently, education is supposed to be a need for all human beings. There should be no discrimination whatsoever. Formal education does not only develop the life of human beings, it also goes a long way to enhance the development of society, socially and economically. Article 23 of the United Nations Human right recognizes that everyone has the right to go to school and no one is to be exempted and the law of July 1983 and the decree of implementation of November 1990 form the strong government policy towards the education of persons with disabilities. This is to show how important it is to empower people, especially persons with disabilities through education.

The factors which play a  role  in  determining the  attitudes  of  teachers  include age, gender, qualifications, experience, level of teaching, school management and proficiency. Diebold and Trentham (1987) investigated teachers’ attitudes toward education in Alabama, and found that regular educators were positively inclined towards teaching students with disabilities, were confident about their skills and sufficiency of time to carry out the mainstreaming programme in the regular classroom, and about the effects of teacher inputs in the educational programme. Zambelli and Bonni (2004) also stated that two factors are important in the formation of positive attitudes towards education, namely, increased knowledge and information about school inclusion and disabilities. Even Galis and Tanner (1995) in their study concluded that it is both important as well as legally mandated, to make modifications for those students who need it, to benefit from the educational environment.

Background to the study

Hearing is the main sensory pathway through which speech and verbal communication develop. If a child hears imperfectly, he is likely to speak incorrectly. Again hearing also influences learning and other aspects of maturation.

Hearing Impairment is a broad term that refers to hearing losses of varying degrees from hard-of- hearing to total deafness. Students with a hearing impairment may be hard to recognize in the classroom.

They may use hearing aids, lip-read, sign language or a combination of these three. The two major challenges facing students with hearing impairments are communication and discrimination. Students with hearing impairments vary widely in their skill level and methodology of communication. The most frequently used method at Saginaw Valley State University is a combination of lip-reading and residual hearing, which is often amplified by hearing aids. Hearing impaired refers to any person with any type of degree of hearing loss. Deaf refers to individuals with nonfunctional hearing. Hard of hearing is used to define a hearing impaired person whose sense of hearing, although defective, is functional and whose language skills will be developed through an auditory base.

Historically, regular schools have been recommended as a more realistic method for educating exceptional children in Nigeria (Federal Government of Nigeria, 1981 Revised). In Cameroon, Law No 8 3/1 of July, 1983 relates to the protection of persons with disabilities. The conditions for implementing this law are laid down in Decree No 90/1516 of 26 November 1990, Article 3 of Law 83/13 of July 1983 focus on the education of children with disabilities. Three options are given as concerns this group of children namely integration in ordinary schools, admission in specialized institutions and admission into special classroom. The recent document on the education in Cameroon is the February 2005 Draft document from the Technical Committee for the elaboration of the sector wide approach in education which calls for the education of persons with disabilities. It states that “special education shall consist in initiating persons with physical, sensory, mental and multiple disabilities to appropriate communication methods in other to have access to normal general education and later on, to vocational training.” This means that the above law shall include measures like ; providing for their financial, material needs like Perkins Brailler, Slate and stylus, the abacus, the thermoform machine, lacking calculators and the Option and pedagogic support.

Many African countries and Cameroon in particular have gone a long way in increasing access to basic and secondary education for all its citizens. The educational arrangement for the handicapped is highly gaining grounds in the world and in Cameroon today. Cameroon took part in deliberations leading to the inclusion of persons with special needs in normal schools and signed some international conventions calling for the education for all. The World conference on education for all (UNESCO, Jomtien, Thailand; 2008, as cited by Yuh and Shey) reaffirmed the right of all people to education and called on government concerned, organization and individuals to join in this urgent undertaking, that is to ensure that the basic learning needs of all are met. The Salamanca conference of 1994 (Salamanca, Spain 1994) focused on the education of persons with disabilities while the Dakar framework of action (Dakar, Senegal, 2000) emphasized the education for all, particularly girls and disadvantaged groups by 2015. The second United Nations Millennium Development Goals, (MDGS), hopes to “Achieve universal primary education” by 2015 which is hoped to be successfully attained in Cameroon. Hence more efforts have to be made to ensure that persons with disabilities will not be left behind.

With Cameroon as one of the signatories in the Dakar Frame work (2000), where millennium goals were set that by the year 2015 people must say good bye to illiteracy and if it must wipe out the discrimination of persons with hearing impairment should be educated alongside other normal children in the same educational setting. However, we are still paying adequate attention to the educational needs of individuals with various forms of special needs. Formal education in Cameroon for children and adults with special needs in the early years was done by missionary organization. As a result of little or no maintenance to structures constructed by missionaries for persons with special needs, they are dilapidating like the school of the deaf here in Buea .On the side of the government, it had built some special schools in Yaoundé. These schools are of little benefit to those of other regions of Cameroon because of distance and lack of finances to enable them be enrolled.

The conceptual background will include administrators’ attitudes and the education of hearing impaired students. Concepts like age, gender, qualifications, experience, level of teaching, school management and proficiency, hearing impairment, the concept of regular education will be discuss as the project develops.

Patterning to theoretical background, theories related to this are mainly on learning difficulties and assessments, they include; the social cognitive learning theory of Albert Bandura of 1977 and the socio-cultural learning theory of Lev Vygotsky of 1978.

From the historical perspective, formal education does not only develop the life of human beings, it also goes a long way to enhance the development of society, socially and economically. Article 23 of the United Nation Human right recognises that everyone has the right to go to school and no one is to be exempted and the law of July 1983 and the decree of implementation of November 1990 form the strong government policy towards the education of persons with disabilities. This is to show how important it is to empower people, especially persons with disabilities through education. It is as a result of this that, this study sets out to investigate on the attitudes of school administrators towards education of person’s with hearing impairment in the Buea Municipality.

Statement of the problem

Integrated education for the hearing impaired is a crucial problem facing by Educationists, authorities and teachers all over the world. Hence, solution of this problem is an urgent need for the development of the society and for the development of the hearing impaired children. Special schools are dead-ends for special needs children. They promote isolation, alienation and social exclusion. It is this dominant attitude of exclusion which needs to be changed to build harmonious and compassionate societies. The present study is an attempt to find out the attitudes of school administrators towards education of persons with hearing impairment in Buea Municipality.

General Objective

The study set out to investigate the attitudes of school administrators towards education of persons with hearing impairment in the Buea Municipality.

Specific objectives

Specifically, the study aims at finding out:

1. To find out if there are certain things that students/teachers do that hurt students with hearing impairment in regular school.
2. To assert if there are certain factors in the environment that affect students with hearing impairment in regular schools.
3. To investigate if instructional materials have any effect on the education of the hearing impaired students in regular schools.

Main Research Question

To investigate how the attitudes of school administrators towards persons of hearing impairment will affect them?

Specific Research Questions

1. Are they certain things that teachers/students do that hurt students with hearing impairment in regular school?
2. Does the environmental factor affect students with hearing impairment in regular schools?
3. Do instructional materials have any effect on the education of the hearing impaired students in regular schools?