Socio-Cultural Factors Leading to the Marginalisation of Children Living With Disabilities in Accessing Education in Zimbabwe: The Case Study of Mutare District.

This study investigated the Socio-Cultural factors leading to the marginalization of Children Living with Disabilities in accessing education in Mutare District, Zimbabwe. The study was qualitative in nature and applied purposive Sampling. Data was collected with a Sample of 108 respondents from diverse backgrounds using FGDs, Interviews and Questionnaires. Findings from this research were that children with disabilities were failing to access education due to problems mainly related to lack of assistive technology, attitudinal, environmental and policy challenges. In addition, the few children who are lucky to go to school are mainly in Special Schools shut away from the other learners. However, at least 5% of sampled schools have Special classes and Resource Units within the main school, 85% of schools were not accessible to physically challenged learners while students with disabilities were overtly and covertly denied fulltime school enrolment in main stream schools. Recommendations made by this research were that: (1) Government is to pilot inclusive education on an incremental basis starting by renovating existing schools as well as make and implement meaningful policies. (2) Parents of children with disabilities to form Support Groups and website for solidarity. (3) The donor community and corporate world to facilitate in mainstreaming disability as well as avail financial resources to help both renovate schools to universal design and buy the much needed assistive devices for learners with disabilities. Keywords: Access to education, Barriers, Child/children, Disability, Impairment, Inclusive Education, Marginalisation and Mode