Abstract

Students with special needs face diverse challenges in institution of higher learning which greatly affect their access and full participation in academic programmers. The purpose of this study therefore is to find out the influence of home background on the education of persons with special needs in the Buea municipality.

The study was guided by the following four objectives:  to establish how socio-economic status of parents affect the education of persons with special needs, to establish how family type influence the academic performance of children with special needs, to investigate how parent level of education influence the performance of special needs children and to determined how parents perception influence the academic performance of students with special needs in the Buea municipality.

A survey design was use to gather data from two institution. the sample population of the study included 80 students with special needs. A random or purposive sample was use to select the two institution. The research instruments used for collecting data were mainly questionnaires.

The findings indicated that home background, adapted classrooms and extra notes and handout, parental assistance influence the academic performance of students with special needs in the Buea municipality. The study recommended that; the various legislation enacted such as the persons with disability so as to improve accessibility. Lecturers and support staff be given mandatory training on disability training and that library content be available in electronic format as well as braille.

The finding will be useful in institutes of higher learning to assist in creating a disability friendly learning and physical environments as helping to create confidence as well as a can-do attitude in the students with special needs.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

The right to education is now acceptable to all human right for the educational needs of persons with disability. Students’ academic performance is a key feature in education; personal, social, psychological and economic factors as it plays a great role in producing the best quality leaders and man power for the country. Ali, Tambo, peiser (2009)

Learning is complex: humans have the ability to maintain knowledge and experience in relatively stable ways, which is called “schemes’’. Learners improve their scheme because they need to adapt to the environment which it takes to be solved and skill to be learned. (paiget 2002). According to (DCSF, 2007), learning is complex since it being from birth and continue throughout life. Parents are the first teachers and role model for their children and therefore have a strong influence on their education, yet many parents are not aware of the important they play in their children education. Parents are seen as the first educators

A child home environment and family have a strong influence on his or her child development and academic achievement. Many home backgrounds, variables affect children education such as socio-economic status, level of parent education, family size, parent’s perception etc. (Flouri and Buchunan, 2004). Specifically, parents’ involvement with reading activity at home has significant positive effect not only on reading achievement, language comprehension and expressive language skills. Also, on the interest in reading attractiveness in the classroom.

This chapter compresses of the background of the study, the statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research question’s, research hypothesis, and justification of the study, significant of the study, scope of study and definition of key terms.

Background to the Study

Historically, more than a century ago, most students with a disability are uneducated or not given proper access to education. Following the segregation from the middle up until the late 19th century, special schools were created for children with disabilities, effectively excluding them from normal school institutions. This continued for a while up until the 1920s, when educators first began seeing the value of providing proper care and education for those with disabilities. The first change then came in the form of rehabilitation Act of 1973, followed by its amendments of 1986 and 1992, where institutions that guarantee the employment and education right of disabled people were given proper funding. This was then followed by the passing of the individuals with disabilities education Act (IDEA), where every school district is required to provide free and appropriate education for all children. Its further give reauthorization in 1997 also did wonders, as it further protected and guaranteed the right of disabled person to a quality education.

As far as the United States is concerned, special education has come a long way since the beginning of the 19th century. However, for other nations, most especially developing ones, it’s still trying to find stable footing.one such nation is Africa. Viewed as a fundamental and crucial human right of everyone, the importance of education and knowledge can never be stressed enough, but with poor government funding and lack of resources, countries in Africa like Kenya and Nigeria are still struggling, especially children with disabilities. Now, in the 21the century the aspect of inclusion education in schools accept both students of (disable and normal ones) where they are put to study in the same institution and the environment is structure in such a way that persons with disability is confortable.

Conceptually, special needs education seeks to explain learners with barriers (special needs) arising from disability condition usually required specialized support services for example sign language interpreter, braille transcribers); specialized teaching methods. Special education serves children with emotion, behavioral, or cognitive impairments or with intellectual, hearing, vision, speech, learning disabilities, gifted children with advanced academic abilities and children with orthopedic or neurological impairment.

Hence, Home background is the base of education and care services as defined in section 10 of the education and training, as those that provide “education or care to children who are under the age of 5years and above”. According to Tambo (2003), the home has always been recognizing as number one agency of informal education. This is because much is transmitted through the interaction with siblings that is brothers, sister, relative and the home environment as a whole. The home and the school are seen as two primary setting that transform the children with special needs in to an adult capable of dealing with the support towards life independency.it has long been recognizes that the character of a child home situation affect their r intellectual development and learning. This goes further to explain that children who do well in school come from family which provides an enriched environment for learning in the home. Also, children who do less in school often come from family were support for school learning is limited.

Therefore, the home is seen as a crucial place: as parents are seen as the greatest influence on the achievement of young people through supporting their learning at home rather than supporting school activities. Parents early intervention is vital, the early parents become involved in their children literacy and language practices, the more profound the effect and the long lasting the effects. Children learn long before they enter formal education (Emily Mottram and Emily McCoy, June,2010), suggest that any policy aiming to improve language literacy standards cannot be limited to formal education settings, where children spend only a small proportion of their time. On the contrary, it need embrace the family as a whole and it include parents as patterns in their children education from the very beginning of their children education lives and in trying meet the different requirements and needs.

National policy of education 2004, defined special education as a formal special education training given to people with special needs. This group of people may be classified into three categories which arte the gifted and the talented, the disabled and the disadvantaged.

A child with special need can only have training through the following agencies; the home, the school, town and village, communicates and peer groups. Apparently, the development on the education of special needs children began with the united nation universal declaration of human right 1975 from which other countries like Cameroon have developed ideas and recorded and has developed many policies and ministerial orders which they intend to use to make special needs education better for special needs children in the country.

Peiser (2008) trace the long road to inclusive education which began with the universal declaration of human right in 1948. This declaration ensures the rights to free and compulsory education for all children. The 1994 Salamanca declaration and framework for action of special needs education was made in a conference at Salamanca in Spain. The guiding principle of the framework was that ordinary school should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic and other conditions. According to the framework all education policies should stipulate the disable children attend the neighborhood school that would be attended if the child did not have a disability.

Theoretically, Urie Bonfenbrenner (1979) ecological system theory came out with some system that explains how human development is influence by environmental aspect such as (the micro system, meso-system, exo-system, and the chrono system).

Albert Bandura social learning theory (1971) talk on modeling, observation and imitation and through this process socialization comes in where children learn basic aspect.

Ever since disability researchers launched the social model of disability and criticized the field of special education for preserving an understanding of disability in accord with a medical model, the special education field has been in a state of crisis. The implication of this has been the embarrassment of talking about categories and levels of functional difficulty; as well as diagnoses, all of which enable individual assessments necessary for building the IEPs (individual educational plans) and child-centered teaching within special needs education. The challenge for special needs education and its understanding of disability, yet at the same time to develop an understanding of the phenomenon of disability, identifying pupils’ needs without contributing to the negative effect that classification, categorization and labeling in education. The rationale for the social relational model of disability is that it is better conform to the morality of inclusion because the main issue of the social model, oppression, is not obliterated.

Contextually, the following such as learning disability, physical challenge and illness was recognizes as parents and the institution responsibility for procreating child rising. The important of childhood and the effect of home life on personality and character formation and improvement of child special need have wildly recognizes. As a basic primary group, the family has more to do with special need student ultimate improvement pattern that any other environment factor. Considering that he/she has been brought up .it is clear that special need children attitudes towards education depend on their home background.

Statement of the Problem

The issues of home background and it influence on the education of person with special needs called for consent this is because the home is the place where the child up bring begins. The quality of parents to child relationship is fundamental to the child development. This influence may arise from socio-economic status of parents, family type, parent’s attitude and parents’ education.

Some of the special children who face academic difficulties are those who cannot meet up with demand of schooling or who are not sent to school or who lack adequate advice, lack encouragement from parents towards their education. Hence, this study aims to find out as to what extent home background influences the education of persons with special needs.

Objectives of the Study

General Objectives

To investigate the influence of home background on the education of person with special need in Buea municipality.

Specific Objective

1. To examine the influence of socio-economic status on the education of persons with special needs.
2. To examine the parents’ level of education and its influence on persons with disability
3. To examine family type on the education of person with special needs in the Buea municipality.
4. To investigate the level of family perception on the education of persons with special needs in the Buea municipality.

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