Abstract:
Development of education has been given great emphasis all over the world. Declaration of
Education For All was meant to ensure that every child’s right to education is protected and
respected. The free primary education policy in Kenya is meant to provide education to all pupils
including those with disabilities. The introduction of Universal Primary Education, accompanied
by establishment of Educational Assessment and Resource Centers in the county was expected
that pupils with disabilities would meaningfully access quality integrated education. However,
this objective has not been realized as planned due to institutional factors such as: physical
facilities, support services and teacher behaviors that bar them from obtaining an adequate
education and opportunity for full social life. The purpose of the study was to investigate
institutional factors that affect integration of pupils with physical disabilities. This was a case of
integrated schools in Embu west Sub-County, Kenya. The study adopted the Ex-post facto
research design. Target population for the study was three hundred and one respondents who
included: two head teachers, two S.N.E teachers, forty one pupils with physical disabilities and
two hundred and fifty six non-disabled pupils. A sample of two hundred participants was drawn
composed of one hundred fifty five pupils from standard five, six, seven and eight, two head
teachers, two special needs teachers and forty one pupils with physical disabilities. The sample
of non-disabled pupils was selected by use of stratified random sampling, while pupils with
physical disabilities, teachers and head teachers were purposefully sampled. Three sets of
questionnaires were used in the collection of data from the special needs teachers, pupils with
physical disabilities and non-disabled pupils. An interview schedule was used to collect data
from the head teachers. Pilot study was carried out at Embu urban primary school to determine
reliability of the instruments. The following reliability indices were obtained; Questionnaire for
pupils with disabilities obtained 0.81, questionnaire for none disabled obtained 0.74 while
questionnaire for the teachers obtained 0.78. To determine validity of the instruments a pre-test
was done during the pilot study they were then verified by the supervisors and other experts in
the department of Psychology, Counseling and Educational Foundations from Laikipia
University. Descriptive statistics which includes frequencies and percentages was used to present
the study findings. The study found out that physical facilities and support services were
inadequately provided and therefore pupils with physical facilities did not gain academically and
socially from integrated education. The study concludes that physical facilities, support services
and teacher behaviors in teaching highly affect integration of pupils with physical disabilities in
public primary schools and that the inadequate facilities for pupils with physical disabilities is a
barrier to integration. The study will benefit educational planners as it will be a reference to feed
into their development plans of successful implementation of integrated education. The study
therefore recommends that adequate physical facilities and support services should be provided
to enhance integration. Regarding the training of the special needs education teachers, the
ministry of Education should enhance further training of all the teachers in integrated schools in
order to enhance and update their skills.
