The fact that section 28 1 b has horizontal application between the parent and the child has a further implication in that South African law recognises that children can enforce fundamental rights against their parents. This undoubtedly raises the potential for conflict between the rights and interest of the parents and the rights and interest of the child, and the courts will have the task of balancing or weighing these competing rights.
Thirdly, section 28 1 requires that care of a certain quality be provided. The particular recognition given in section 28 1 d of the Bill of Rights of children's rights not to be maltreated, neglected, abused or degraded is also of significance to the topic under discussion. This section imposes a duty on parents as well as the state to refrain from these forms of treatment.
It also places a positive duty on the state to intervene in situations of ongoing maltreatment or abuse, for instance by removing a child from such a situation. This duty is given legislative effect by certain provisions of the Children's Act which empower police officers, social workers and other authorised persons to remove children from their homes to a place of safety under certain circumstances.
This creates the need for a flexible test against which to decide if a decision to intervene is constitutionally sound. What is of significance is that the Children's Act firstly specifically defines the terms abuse 64 and neglect 65 and secondly does so in a holistic way by also including in the definitions the responsibility placed on parents to provide for a child's basic physical, intellectual, emotional and social needs.
Caution should thus be taken by judges to do so on an informed basis and in the light of the individual child's position and circumstances. The Bill of Rights also recognises children's rights to legal representation in that section 28 1 h states "that every child has the right to have a legal practitioner assigned to the child by the state and at state expense, in civil proceedings affecting the child, if substantial injustice would otherwise result".
Section 28 1 h thus ensures the child a right to participate in matters affecting him or her. This affords a child an own representative and gives effect to article 12 of the CRC. In Centre for Child Law v Minister of Home Affairs 71 the court reiterated the importance of legal representation for children in terms of section 28 1 h and subsequently ordered that a legal representative be appointed by the state for the child concerned.
This section thus forms a platform for children to be directly involved in civil litigation and for their legal representatives to place the children's views before the court. In Soller v G 72 Satchwell J pointed out that there are:.
In Pillay 73 , Langa CJ remarked that the need for a child's voice to be heard is perhaps even more acute when it concerns children who should be increasingly taking responsibilities for their own actions and beliefs in this case a 16 year-old girl. The court's stance on "substantial injustice" is also of particular significance as it indicated that it referred to civil proceedings that are of crucial importance to a child's current life and future developments.
Section 28 2 provides further protection for children by stating that a child's interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child and thus entrenches the paramount principle as a right in itself.
Section 28 2 elevates the child's best interests to the supreme issue in every matter that concerns the child. This does not mean, however, that it serves as a trump to automatically override other rights, or that other constitutional rights are unimportant and may simple be ignored. The fact that the best interests of the child are paramount does not imply that the right is absolute. Sometimes the best interests of the child or children in general, as odd as this may sound, may even limit a child's best interests.
In the scenario given on page 2 of the 16 year old Milnerton girl, this therefore does not mean that the child's interest are of such importance that the cohesion of the family becomes unimportant, but should also be a factor to be considered by the court before taking a decision to grant the girl her wish to live semi-independently.
The paramount principle does, however, require a truly child-centred approach, which in turn "requires a close and individualised examination of the precise real life situation of the particular child involved".
Applied to the given scenario of the Milnerton girl, a judge should thus not unquestioningly apply prevailing social and cultural norms or social theories of what is the best for children in general; nor should he or she simply apply his or her personal views, or those of society or of the child's parents. On the contrary, they are very relevant in terms of a contextualised approach to determining the best interests of the child.
But the focus of such factors must be of relevance and must impact on the individual child. The socio-cultural beliefs and opinions of the parents and their impact on the specific child should, however, be considered only if and to the extent that a parent's religious and cultural beliefs and practices and conduct are shown by reliable means to impact negatively on the development and happiness of the child concerned.
Only then should any of these factors weigh with a court in making an order in respect of that child. It is accepted, however, that perceptions of morality and social standards of what is acceptable vary from time to time and from one society to another. This is also true of South Africa with its diverse society. The South African Constitution recognises this diversity and the Constitutional Court has repeatedly held that our constitutional values include tolerance of and respect for this diversity.
The religion and culture in which the specific child is growing up must be taken into account. This is also recognised in section 7 1 of the Children's Act in that the child's need to remain in the care of his or her parents, family and extended family and to maintain a connection with that family, extended family, culture and tradition as well as his or her social and cultural development should be taken into account when determining a child's best interests.
In this regard section 12 1 of the Children's Act specifically affords every child the right not to be subjected to social, cultural and religious practices which are detrimental to his or her well-being. The challenge is thus to respect diverse social and cultural values but to do so without compromising the best interests of the child. As was stated in the introduction, South Africa has also recently enacted a new Children's Act, 90 which sets out to give effect to certain rights of children as contained in the Constitution.
This includes inter alia principles relating to care and protection; to partial care; to prevention and early intervention and definitions of parental responsibilities and rights and so forth. The focus of this contribution is, however, on the clarification of the factors in the Children's Act that are to be considered in an application for the termination, suspension or restriction of parental responsibilities and rights in the best interest of the child.
In this regard sections 7 and 28 of the Children's Act are of particular importance. They will be discussed in reverse order. Section 28 of the Children's Act in particular deals with the court-ordered termination, extension, suspension or restriction of parental responsibilities and rights and states as follows:. Section 28 1 authorises the suspension for a period or the termination of any or all of the parental responsibilities and rights a specific person has.
While the first of these scenarios is extremely extensive "termination of any or all" and should thus be used sparingly and with due consideration, the second is less restrictive in that it specifically states that such suspension of parental responsibilities and rights is for a specific period only and can therefore not operate indefinitely.
The aforementioned applications may be combined with an application for care and contact in terms of section This entails that an application to terminate or suspend parental rights and responsibilities may be combined with an application to assign care and contact to another person. It is noteworthy that social development authorities can also bring an application of the kind envisaged in section When considering such an application the court must take the following factors into account: the best interests of the child; the relationship between the child and the person whose parental responsibilities and rights are being challenged; the degree of commitment that the person has shown towards the child; and any other factor that should in the opinion of the court be taken into account.
It is without doubt no coincidence that the requirement of the best interest is one of the factors that has to be considered by a court when exercising its discretion, as the standard has been described as the golden thread that runs through the whole fabric of the South African law relating to children.
In this regard the most comprehensive list of factors was proposed in McCall v McCall , in which thirteen factors were identified in an open-ended list specifically designed for resolving custody disputes. Section 7 1 of the Children's Act is of significant value as it partly addresses this criticism by listing fourteen factors that must be taken into consideration whenever the best interests of the child are determined. When evaluating the Act's list of fourteen factors two issues present themselves as being of concern.
Firstly, although the act emphasises the needs of the child and his or her physical and emotional security, a child's preferences are excluded from the list. It can, however, perhaps be argued that this is catered for in section 10 of the Children's Act, which specifically allows for child participation in court proceedings.
This may be a limitation in practice, although judicial officers have the discretion to consider other factors where relevant.
In addition it should be noted that although the fourteen factors give particular recognition to the well-being of the child, emphasis is also placed on the importance of the need for a child to remain in the care of and to maintain a connection with his or her parents, family and extended family, culture or tradition. A stable family environment should thus be protected where possible.
Finally, an evaluation of the topic under discussion would not be complete without taking account of regional and international standards. A brief analysis of the most important international and regional instruments will thus be given. In terms of section 39 1 , when interpreting the rights set out in the Bill of Rights, such as the best interests of the child, a court, tribunal or forum must consider international law and may consider foreign law.
The importance of international law is therefore self-evident and has been entrenched in the new Constitutional context. With reference to the topic under discussion, the following international provisions are of importance. Teachers in the kingdom of Swaziland are to a large extent lacking this support as the Ministry of Education and Training has only recently established structures for teacher support.
Whilst this is a positive step towards capacity building, a large number of teachers who are already in the field still feel they lack the skill and the tools to teach learners with diverse needs because most of them never received training in inclusive education, whilst capacity-building workshops have not been able to reach a majority of teachers in the field.
According to Fakudze lack of support for teachers is characterised by lack of state funding for inclusive education programmes and provision of in-service training for teachers that can empower them and so lead to a change in their attitudes towards inclusive education.
Fakudze further argues that teachers upgrade themselves at their own expense on a part-time basis. In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training has failed to provide schools with specialists in areas such as braille, hearing specialists and learning difficulty specialists to mainstream inclusive schools. In a study conducted by Mahlo in Gauteng Province in South Africa, interviews revealed that the school-based support teams SBST lacked the knowledge and skills to assist learners and teachers and yet empowering the SBSTs could be one strategy to enhance the implementation of inclusive education.
According to Le Fanu , in terms of knowledge, teachers need to be aware of the different forms of diversity to be found among children. These include gender difference, linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity, social—emotional diversity, cognitive and academic diversity and sensory and physical diversity. Many of these diversities are interconnected and also embedded in various contexts. For instance, it is not possible to understand the problems faced by girls in schools without considering the impact of some traditional beliefs on the ways they are regarded and treated.
The impact of inappropriate teaching and learning methods can be demonstrated in a study conducted in a primary school in Botswana.
During class observations, Mukhopadhyay, Molosiwa and Moswela :5 observed that teachers were using the teacher-centred method, which did not cater for individual differences.
Their lesson notes were scanty without clear evidence on how they would meet the learning needs of learners with SENs. None of these teachers employed instructional accommodation during teaching and learning. Another interesting finding was that some of the teachers preferred to use Setswana when interacting with learners with SENs during the lesson.
Post-observation interviews revealed that teachers felt that learners with SENs did not comprehend well when instructed in English. Mukhopadhyay et al. Their teaching approaches were ideal because they employed instructional adaptations and strategies such as 1 large fonts for learners with visual impairments and 2 peer-tutoring to meet the learning needs of individuals with visual impairments.
The culture of teaching at this school also emphasised team-teaching, instanced by the presence of regular and special educators who shared teaching responsibilities.
The juxtaposition of these scenarios highlights the effectiveness of appropriate teaching methods against inappropriate ones. This phenomenon is directly related to poor macro policy on these materials and the high costs on the open market.
They have to continuously play catch up. As a result, their pace in learning becomes slow because they are not able to hear, see or express themselves properly or because they write more slowly than other children, and learning at unfriendly facilities results in many of them failing to pass exams.
It is evident in this literature that use of inappropriate teaching and learning methods and support material negatively impacts the process of implementing inclusive education. The approach selected for this study was the qualitative research approach to get more information on the barriers teachers face in the implementation of inclusive education in high schools in Swaziland.
The selection of this approach was based on the nature of the research problem and the characteristics of qualitative research that are applicable to this research. A case study was selected as a design for this study. According to McMillan and Schumacher , a case study design data analysis focuses on one phenomenon that the researcher selects to understand in depth, regardless of the number of sites or participants. Data was obtained through semi-structured research interviews and documents analysis, processed and analysed through data coding, unitising and categorising, wherein the themes that emerged became the findings of the study.
This research study being qualitative and a case study in nature employed social or realist constructivist methods. Social constructionism may be defined as a perspective that believes that a great deal of human life exists as it does because of social and interpersonal influences Owen According to Fetterman knowledge is socially constructed as the researcher and the researched teachers interact in a natural setting.
Hence, in order to investigate the research problem, teachers were interviewed and interacted with in their respective schools. The target population of this study comprised high school teachers in the Gege branch of schools.
There is a total number of three high schools in the branch. The Gege branch was selected because it is, like the rest of the country, one of the branches earmarked to mainstream inclusive education. Sampling was performed on the population of teachers from two schools selected as the case study of the research. According to Trochim , sampling is the process of selecting units from a population of interest so that by studying the same we may fairly generalise our results back to the population from which they were chosen.
A researcher may use various forms of sampling techniques such as random, probability, proportional, systematic, cluster, convenience and purposive sampling, among others Creswell Purposive sampling was used in this study. McMillan and Schumacher argue that purposive sampling is used to increase the utility of information obtained from a small sample, which is the case with this research study.
From a population of 60 teachers, 14 were selected: seven participants at School A and seven at School B. The selection of novice teachers alongside experienced individuals was purposely done because they represent different eras in teacher training. Recent graduates were selected to represent teachers who were likely to have received inclusive education training at college or university. This is in light of the fact that a 3-year Inclusive Education degree was introduced at Southern Africa Nazarene University 3 years ago year while more experienced teachers represented teachers who were likely to have never received pre-service inclusive education training but ought to have gotten in-service training.
Letters describing the study were sent to the teachers, who gave their written consent to the researcher. Semi-structured interviews were initiated by the interviewer, with a view to gathering certain information from the person interviewed. These were conducted face to face with individual teachers. Face to face interviews enabled the researcher to gather information about the situation regarding barriers in the implementation of inclusive education at the Gege branch of high schools.
Interviews were voluntary, and respondents who participated gave the researcher their signed consent forms. The researcher used digital recording devices to record the interviews and then interviews were transcribed and coded by two independent researchers. Interview questions were asked based on a literature review previously conducted to ascertain what other scholars have found in the same topic and the gaps thereof. The main research question the study sought to address was: What are the barriers to the implementation of inclusive education in high schools in Gege branch, Swaziland?
The literature reviewed to inform the research questions included the following subtopics, inappropriate teaching and learning methods and support material, lack of support for teachers, unqualified and underqualified teachers, teacher training barriers to effective teaching and learning, inappropriate assessment procedures and curriculum delivery barriers to learning.
Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires formatted on a five-point Likert scale were used for data collection.
Through the use of the semi-structured form of interviewing, the researchers were able to look at the way the responses were given, the tone used, facial expression, hesitation and gestures. To establish reliability, the instruments were pilot-tested with eight four male and four female teachers in a mainstream inclusive school in Nhlangano area.
Importantly, findings from the pilot indicated that the items on the questionnaire instrument were clearly worded as there were few clarity-seeking questions and the instruments were seen as giving a satisfactory validity. The documents reviewed for this study gave information that complemented information gathered through interviews. The main question was interrogated through interviews with the participants. Responses to the questions asked regarding barriers in the implementation of inclusive education were tabulated in Table 3.
The responses as given by the participants culminated in the formation of three categories, which ultimately resulted in the themes or findings of the study, which are presented in Table 3. A teacher qualification register was analysed in the participating schools to investigate the level of teacher training and its impact on the implementation of inclusive education. Teachers have negative attitude towards teaching learners with disabilities and learning challenges.
I was given an overview of inclusive education in my guidance and counselling studies. The researcher was fully aware of the ethical and legal obligations he had to the study and the participants as well. The obligations included full disclosure of the study to participants, voluntary participation of respondents, informed consent and avoiding exposing participants to risks.
The authors adhered to research ethics and the University of South Africa provided clearance. All stakeholders including participants consented by signing consent forms. Participants were male 10 and female teachers 4 , all qualified high school teachers, employed by the Ministry of Education and Training on a permanent basis in their schools.
Some teachers were diploma holders whilst others were degree holders, and their teaching experience varied from 4 to 20 years. Participants have been represented by letters A to N under the teacher section of Table 1. The names of the teachers are known but letters have been used to protect their identities and ensure confidentiality. The individual teacher profiles were grouped to show age, experience and qualifications.
The aim was to summarily give the number of teachers with relevant qualifications in inclusive education. The summary of teacher profiles is presented in Table 2. All interviews with participants were conducted by the researcher during times that were suitable and comfortable to the participant teachers. Other participants were interviewed on weekends and after school hours when they had free time to answer the research interview questions.
According to Lee :3 , for the first step of the data analysis, the researcher has to read and reread, writing down the emerging categories in a form of a paraphrase, phrase, heading or label that describes what the respondents are trying to say and what the researcher thinks of as important.
To reduce the impact of researcher bias, two independent researchers were engaged in the process of data coding and the themes that emerged from both were taken as the findings of the study. Below are the findings presented in tubular format as coded by both independent researchers. The themes are further deliberated on in the discussion section of this research study.
Table 3 presents the responses to the question asked regarding barriers in the implementation of inclusive education that participants identified as realities in their respective schools. Table 3 presents the findings of this study that highlight major factors that were found to be barriers to the implementation of inclusive education in schools by teachers.
These include the following. Non-inclusive curriculum: The curriculum is considered to be non-inclusive if it does not take into consideration activities teachers and learners must to do because of learning challenges and barriers that may be present in inclusive classrooms. Big numbers of learners: The policy of the Ministry of Education and Training in Swaziland is that one teacher should teach 40 learners per classroom.
Teachers complain that whilst this is practical for so-called normal school learners, it is much more challenging for the inclusive classroom where a teacher has to spend more time on one learner and draw up Individualised Education Programmes for pupils with learning challenges. Lack of resources: The units in Table 3 highlight that teachers asserted there was a lack of resources and equipment assistive devices for disabled learners in the schools where they worked.
There was also a lack of teachers and yet in inclusive schools they are an essential resource. One document reviewed was a teacher profile document that contained teacher information and their qualifications from both participating schools.
Figure 8 shows some pictures of the workshop during different activities. The first day the teacher asked each child if they had tablets user profile.
The last day was for the evaluation; it consisted to make three challenges over a period of 60 minutes: 1 Move the robot from the start point, in a straight line, going through a tunnel the player must turn the light on inside the tunnel.
The challenges were explained, each child started the challenges, and the observer recorded the activity and took notes. At the end of the session a satisfaction questionnaire was conducted asking for the robot and the application. They found it easy to use and fun, according to the satisfaction questionnaire.
Furthermore, they did not have problems understanding the commands or another miscellaneous buttons such as clear screen, load program, and disconnect according to usability attribute: memorability.
Usability metrics obtained in the test are shown in Table 6. Besides, teacher and observers consider the events in which each child mimicked the robot and acted the commands were crucial to the learning process. We found that older participants achieved an exceptional success rate.
We think that the tasks were too easy for them. The younger participants 4 years old had difficulties; however, the interaction with the older ones helped. This leads us to believe that a workshop integrating 4- to 5-year-old children is beneficial. The time frame of each session two hours is considered as the limit for the children, because at the end of the session they were exhausted.
The evaluation process showed problems of design, usability, and functionality. All these problems were resolved, obtaining a more useful PAT. When comparing the third and fourth stage of the evaluation, we determined that the errors caused by the PAT and the robots were reduced significantly. With this result, we consider that our system is ready to be deployed in regular learning activities.
Even though the problems solved by children are basic, moving the robot in a straight line or turning lights on and off, we believe that problems with a higher level of difficulty can also be solved.
However, the time spent in this evaluation does not provide enough empirical evidence to support that claim. Further evaluation will allow us to fully determine the impact of our tool used by children since the age of 4. We proved that programming concepts can be taught to children since age 4 and probably younger.
However, at this age the amount of effort required to keep the children focused and trying to solve a problem is high enough. Moreover, it is difficult for them to apply what they learned in real-life problems, because we are trying to develop in them abstract thinking by programming robots.
Our goal is to teach children to think and solve problems in a structured way, using algorithms that will benefit them later to resolve any problems that are present in their life, but the latter cannot be proven. In addition, programming is the future literacy and we are working on it from an early age.
One clear impact that could be perceived in the period of time in which we performed this evaluation was that teachers were able to keep the attention of children for longer periods of time by using technology.
Several studies support this discovery [ 4 , 7 , 8 , 32 , 33 ]; however, we applied it not only to keep the attention of children but also to teach them concepts that are usually too difficult to be understood by children that age, when presented in other ways.
The contribution to Mobile Information System is the design and evaluation of mobile interfaces for children to early childhood programmed robots in an intuitive and easy way.
TITIBOTS enables programming and robotics to teach preschoolers while having fun playing; which promotes the development of skills such as problem solving skills, logical-mathematical thought, abstraction, and creativity in the medium to long term.
We followed an extensive design and evaluation process. We used several techniques to evaluate the usability, including participatory-design, experience prototype, and usability testing. We consider the development of the project was successful. They manipulated the tool to infer the meaning and the use of the icons and commands. In addition, children were always interested, happy, and attentive while using the PAT, but most importantly, they had fun.
It was evident for us that this PAT allows the children to play and to program robots in order to solve specific tasks. The evaluation of TITIBOTS is also considered successful, because it was possible that children learn basic programming concepts, such as sequential problem solving.
They were able to verbalize their thinking when were asked. We believe that the use of concrete and physical exercises without the tool with the children facilitates the use of the developed environment. The children that use the tool acquired a first approach to the basic process for solving a given problem, following the common programming steps: planning, implementation writing the program , and testing sending the commands to the robot.
The designed teaching-learning activities were successful, caught the attention of children, and achieved the expected objectives for each one. Studies show that the use of robotics in the teaching-learning process of children has accomplished that children learn specific curricular content in STEM areas. In our study, we have not tested any of this, but it will be held as part of the future work of this research. Moreover, we think that modifying the environment and designing it appropriately we can create strategies for the children to collaborate in solving a given problem.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Article of the Year Award: Outstanding research contributions of , as selected by our Chief Editors. Read the winning articles. Journal overview. Special Issues. Academic Editor: Laurence T. Received 30 May Revised 10 Oct Accepted 13 Oct Published 28 Nov Abstract Children born in the Information Age are digital natives; this characteristic should be exploited to improve the learning process through the use of technology.
Introduction The Information Age is a period in human history in which the use of technological tools extensive and almost every human activity is based on information computerization [ 1 ]. Robot Programming Assistance Tools for Children This section presents the summarized results of a systematic literature review conducted to find PATs to program robots usable by children under 12 years old. Table 1. Figure 1.
Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Usability attribute Metrics Usability goal Learnability i Average time used to complete a challenge the first time. Efficiency i Total and percentage of successful challenges. Memorability Total and percentage of correct answers about the application. Errors i Total and average unsuccessful attempt. Satisfaction i Like or not like. Table 2. Table 3. Figure 5. Figure 6. Table 4. Results of the evaluation of icons, interface, and interaction.
A researcher may use various forms of sampling techniques such as random, probability, proportional, systematic, cluster, convenience and purposive sampling, among others Creswell Purposive sampling was used in this study.
McMillan and Schumacher argue that purposive sampling is used to increase the utility of information obtained from a small sample, which is the case with this research study. From a population of 60 teachers, 14 were selected: seven participants at School A and seven at School B.
The selection of novice teachers alongside experienced individuals was purposely done because they represent different eras in teacher training. Recent graduates were selected to represent teachers who were likely to have received inclusive education training at college or university. This is in light of the fact that a 3-year Inclusive Education degree was introduced at Southern Africa Nazarene University 3 years ago year while more experienced teachers represented teachers who were likely to have never received pre-service inclusive education training but ought to have gotten in-service training.
Letters describing the study were sent to the teachers, who gave their written consent to the researcher. Semi-structured interviews were initiated by the interviewer, with a view to gathering certain information from the person interviewed.
These were conducted face to face with individual teachers. Face to face interviews enabled the researcher to gather information about the situation regarding barriers in the implementation of inclusive education at the Gege branch of high schools. Interviews were voluntary, and respondents who participated gave the researcher their signed consent forms. The researcher used digital recording devices to record the interviews and then interviews were transcribed and coded by two independent researchers.
Interview questions were asked based on a literature review previously conducted to ascertain what other scholars have found in the same topic and the gaps thereof.
The main research question the study sought to address was: What are the barriers to the implementation of inclusive education in high schools in Gege branch, Swaziland? The literature reviewed to inform the research questions included the following subtopics, inappropriate teaching and learning methods and support material, lack of support for teachers, unqualified and underqualified teachers, teacher training barriers to effective teaching and learning, inappropriate assessment procedures and curriculum delivery barriers to learning.
Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires formatted on a five-point Likert scale were used for data collection. Through the use of the semi-structured form of interviewing, the researchers were able to look at the way the responses were given, the tone used, facial expression, hesitation and gestures. To establish reliability, the instruments were pilot-tested with eight four male and four female teachers in a mainstream inclusive school in Nhlangano area.
Importantly, findings from the pilot indicated that the items on the questionnaire instrument were clearly worded as there were few clarity-seeking questions and the instruments were seen as giving a satisfactory validity. The documents reviewed for this study gave information that complemented information gathered through interviews.
The main question was interrogated through interviews with the participants. Responses to the questions asked regarding barriers in the implementation of inclusive education were tabulated in Table 3. The responses as given by the participants culminated in the formation of three categories, which ultimately resulted in the themes or findings of the study, which are presented in Table 3.
A teacher qualification register was analysed in the participating schools to investigate the level of teacher training and its impact on the implementation of inclusive education. Teachers have negative attitude towards teaching learners with disabilities and learning challenges. I was given an overview of inclusive education in my guidance and counselling studies.
The researcher was fully aware of the ethical and legal obligations he had to the study and the participants as well. The obligations included full disclosure of the study to participants, voluntary participation of respondents, informed consent and avoiding exposing participants to risks.
The authors adhered to research ethics and the University of South Africa provided clearance. All stakeholders including participants consented by signing consent forms. Participants were male 10 and female teachers 4 , all qualified high school teachers, employed by the Ministry of Education and Training on a permanent basis in their schools.
Some teachers were diploma holders whilst others were degree holders, and their teaching experience varied from 4 to 20 years.
Participants have been represented by letters A to N under the teacher section of Table 1. The names of the teachers are known but letters have been used to protect their identities and ensure confidentiality. The individual teacher profiles were grouped to show age, experience and qualifications. The aim was to summarily give the number of teachers with relevant qualifications in inclusive education.
The summary of teacher profiles is presented in Table 2. All interviews with participants were conducted by the researcher during times that were suitable and comfortable to the participant teachers. Other participants were interviewed on weekends and after school hours when they had free time to answer the research interview questions.
According to Lee :3 , for the first step of the data analysis, the researcher has to read and reread, writing down the emerging categories in a form of a paraphrase, phrase, heading or label that describes what the respondents are trying to say and what the researcher thinks of as important. To reduce the impact of researcher bias, two independent researchers were engaged in the process of data coding and the themes that emerged from both were taken as the findings of the study.
Below are the findings presented in tubular format as coded by both independent researchers. The themes are further deliberated on in the discussion section of this research study. Table 3 presents the responses to the question asked regarding barriers in the implementation of inclusive education that participants identified as realities in their respective schools. Table 3 presents the findings of this study that highlight major factors that were found to be barriers to the implementation of inclusive education in schools by teachers.
These include the following. Non-inclusive curriculum: The curriculum is considered to be non-inclusive if it does not take into consideration activities teachers and learners must to do because of learning challenges and barriers that may be present in inclusive classrooms. Big numbers of learners: The policy of the Ministry of Education and Training in Swaziland is that one teacher should teach 40 learners per classroom. Teachers complain that whilst this is practical for so-called normal school learners, it is much more challenging for the inclusive classroom where a teacher has to spend more time on one learner and draw up Individualised Education Programmes for pupils with learning challenges.
Lack of resources: The units in Table 3 highlight that teachers asserted there was a lack of resources and equipment assistive devices for disabled learners in the schools where they worked. There was also a lack of teachers and yet in inclusive schools they are an essential resource. One document reviewed was a teacher profile document that contained teacher information and their qualifications from both participating schools. Lack of clear government implementation matrix policy: The other policy document reviewed was the Swaziland Education Sector Policy of Section 6.
However, the section is not clear on how this shall be implemented, funded and supported. Moreover, the participating schools were found to be without their own policies adopted from this policy on how inclusive education was to be mainstreamed. The Inclusive Education: Responses, Challenges and Prospects for the Kingdom of Swaziland Report notes that in some quarters inclusive education is still narrowly defined and associated with disability only and there is inadequate monitoring and evaluation of inclusive education at national level.
This finding by the report is consistent with responses from some teachers who admitted to having a negative attitude towards learners with disabilities and those having learning difficulties. Whilst monitoring at national level is overseen by one inspector in the Ministry of Education and Training, the country remains without a regional inspectorate for inclusive education.
Inadequate attention to learners with challenges because of other teaching activities. The data gathered during this research study was coded by two independent researchers and the primary researcher analysed both sets of themes. The researcher observed that, to a large extent, the themes, which are the findings of the study, are largely similar, although they were coded separately.
The themes presented are further discussed in detail in the following. At the end of the day syllabuss may not be completed at schools. Teachers viewed inclusive education efforts as being stifled by the large number of learners they were currently teaching in their classrooms.
It was also argued by teachers that considering extracurricular activities in schools, inadequate attention is offered to learners with challenges. Most teachers complained that a majority of their classes had more than 40 students per classroom, which is more than the official student—teacher ratio stipulated by the Ministry of Education and Training.
To this end it can be argued that indeed classrooms were overcrowded as some teachers asserted. Other teachers observed that the large numbers of students per class can perhaps be attributed to inflexibility of the curriculum. A respondent reiterated that:. It was felt not appropriate that the Ministry of Education and Training was mainstreaming inclusive education but still using a curriculum that was not designed to be inclusive.
This argument by teachers seems valid because a curriculum needs to take into consideration teaching methods, lesson planning and lesson structures, as well as assessment methods. Because the current curriculum does not recognise the diversity of learners and their needs in the classroom, then indeed it does hinder efforts towards inclusion.
Another respondent noted the lack of facilities in the school as a challenge in implementing inclusive education in his school. A respondent observed:. She further noted that a learner can be identified to be having a learning challenge but if parents do not have the resources it becomes difficult to effectively help a child.
For instance if a child has an eye problem requiring reading glasses and the parents cannot afford them, it becomes problematic. The child does not learn for long periods and thus misses out on a lot of subject matter. Other teachers felt that parents did not support them enough as well, because sometimes a teacher may be able to identify a learner to be having eyesight problems, for instance, which can be addressed by taking a child to an eye specialist who will recommend appropriate intervention.
Poverty-stricken communities are also poorly resourced communities, which are frequently characterised by limited educational facilities, large classes with high pupil—teacher ratios, inadequately trained staff and inadequate teaching and learning materials. Such factors raise the likelihood of learning breakdown and the inability of the system to sustain effective teaching and learning. Learners from families where one or more of the breadwinners are unemployed or poorly paid are also more likely to leave school as soon as possible to go out to work to supplement the family income.
This perpetuates the cycle of limited skills with fewer work opportunities, increased likelihood of unemployment or poorly paid work and, thus, ongoing poverty and exclusion Department of Education Respondent D male, 25 years old commented that he was unable to identify learners facing learning challenges in his classroom. According to Gwala :3 , often teachers who are unable to identify learning difficulties in learners have the tendency to believe that learners are being difficult or deliberately disturbing learning; hence in some cases teachers ended up punishing learners who in fact needed help.
According to Fakudze , in such cases learners end up dropping out of school because of punishment and lack of support from their teachers. One of the respondents commented that in the schools there was a problem of resources. She said:. Secondly, the school buildings are still not adjusted to accommodate learners with disabilities who may require assistive equipment and specially designed buildings to help them move around the school.
South Africa, in an effort to support the implementation of inclusive education at foundation phase, introduced specialist teachers called learning support teachers LSTs.
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