THE CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED UNDERGRADUATES IN NIGERIAN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

It has been evidenced that inclusive education could act as a springboard for addressing the educational challenges of the vision impaired in Nigerian educational institutions. Against this backdrop, the study investigated the challenges of implementing inclusive education for visually impaired undergraduate students in Anambra State, Nigeria. The study was carried out in Federal and State owned Tertiary Institutions. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. 103 visually impaired undergraduate students were sampled. Simple random sampling technique was employed in the choice of tertiary institutions used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a 20 item questionnaire administered using interview method. Validation of the instrument was done by two experts in Educational Management and Policy Department and an expert in Measurement and Evaluation in Educational Foundations Department of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Data obtained were analyzed through mean and t-test statistic. The findings indicate that visually impaired students in Nigerian tertiary institutions are faced with myriad of educational challenges such as: inadequate facilities, dearth of instructional materials, unfriendly environment, lack of trained personnel. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that, both the stakeholders and government should enhance the educational provisions for inclusive education of the visually impaired undergraduate students in Nigeria