Challenges facing the implementation of inclusive education in Moshi rural district primary schools, Tanzania

The study investigated on the challenges facing the implementation of inclusive education in Tanzanian primary school in Moshi rural district. More specifically the study had three research objectives: (1) to find out the trend and patterns in the implementation of inclusive education in Moshi rural district: (2) to identify the constraints school heads, teachers and pupils with special needs face in inclusive schools and (3) to suggest ways can be used to overcome the constraints facing implementation of inclusive education. The study employed qualitative approach involving case study design. A total of 77 participants were involved in the study including 5 school head teachers, 30 inclusive education teachers and 2 special district education officers and 40 were pupils with special needs who were sampled purposefully and through stratified random sampling and snowballing techniques. Data were sought through interviews, questionnaires, documentary review and observation and were analysed through content analysis. The findings indicate that there were few number of pupils with special needs in Moshi rural district such as deaf impairment, visually impaired, mentally impaired, hearing impairment and albino. The findings indicated the constraints including irregular and insufficient teaching and learning materials training for special education teachers, unsatisfactory infrastructure to accommodate pupils with special need in the inclusive schools and majority of teachers had not gone for in service training. In the light of findings, the study recommends that the ministry of education should provide training for teachers and build physical infrastructure that support pupils with special needs and line of curriculum should be modified to accommodate needs of pupils with special needs.