Inclusive Education: Challenges Faced By People With Disabilities

1.1 INTRODUCTION ‘A nation will not be judged by its success in the sciences, technological prowess, and its economic prosperity or even by its vast knowledge base. It will be judged by the way it takes care of its weakest citizens the young, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, the weak links in the chain. A chain is broken -- even if one link in it is broken’
Professor Singapalli Balaram, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

In developing countries such as Kenya, people with disabilities face a multitude of obstacles and difficulties in their physical environment preventing them from fully participating in their educational, social, cultural and professional life. Disability affects hundreds of millions of families in developing countries. Currently around 10 per cent of the total world 's population, or roughly 650 million people, live with a disability (Disabled World 2011). Wherever they may live, but in particular in developing countries people with disability are facing a multitude of obstacles in their physical environment as they are excluded from basic necessities such as education, employment, health care, social services as well recreational activities.

There has been

Inclusion has become a widely discussed theme of Inclusive Education practices both internationally and in Kenya, as well as a central theme for the Universal Design approach. In education, inclusion is a challenge which calls for a comprehensive institutional restructuring and demands adaptations in the physical education environments. However, as with reducing barriers in the built environments for the disabled in developing countries, Inclusive Education principles remains difficult to implement in Kenya and other developing countries due to financial constraints and other