Zimbabwean General Education Preschool Teacher Needs in Inclusion

Abstract

As Zimbabwe’s education system shifted from exclusion to inclusion in 1994, in alignment with the global world, the population of learners with disabilities educated in general education preschool settings has remarkably increased. Teachers experience diverse challenges in including learners with disabilities into general education preschool settings. Embedded in the core expertise of inclusive pedagogical philosophy, the current interpretive qualitative research gleaned from 24 purposively sampled Zimbabwean general education preschool teachers. A constant comparative approach, which entailed organization of data from individual interviews, nonparticipant observations and document analysis with continuous adjustment, was utilized all through the analysis. Despite teachers being ill-prepared for inclusion, coupled with individual and institutional needs in its practice, they had positive attitudes toward it. The study recommends that training of general education preschool teachers in the practice and theory of inclusion, collaborative pooling of resources of stakeholders, and the incorporation of sociocultural aspects in preschool curricula could optimize inclusivity. This study is a springboard for future studies on the subject.