Attitude of Academic Community towards Physically Challenged Students in the University of Maiduguri: Implications for Financing Inclusive Education for Sustainable Development

This study examined the attitude of academic community towards physically challenged students in the University of Maiduguri as it affect the financing of inclusive education for sustainable development in Nigeria. Four objectives, two research questions and two hypotheses were set and tested for the study. Descriptive survey was adopted as a design while the population comprised 987 academic staff and 89 administrators. Using Stratified and random techniques, 20% of the population were sampled as respondents for the study. Questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. The reliability index of the instrument stood at 0.85. Checklist was also used to verify the availability of physical facility in the University of Maiduguri. Frequency counts and percentage were used in answering research questions while Chi-square was used to determine difference between the attitude of male and female, lecturers and administrators towards the physically challenged students in the University of Maiduguri. The results of the analysis showed that there was no significance difference between gender of administrators and lecturers and their attitude towards the physically challenged students. The study also revealed that there was minimal discrimination of physically challenged by both lecturers and administrators in the University of Maiduguri with 35% and 27% respectively, lecturers and administrators support the welfare of physically challenged in the University of Maiduguri. Based on the result of this study, the researchers recommended among others that the management of the University of Maiduguri should ensure the provision of appropriate facilities for all the categories of physically challenged students to encourage inclusive education; architectural planner should consider physically challenged students in classrooms buildings, offices and hostel accommodations for easy utilization, integration and inclusive education that could lead to sustainable development in Nigeria. Keywords: Attitude, Physically challenged Students, Inclusive Education, Sustainable development