Educational barriers of students with sensory impariment and their coping strategies in Tanzanian higher education institutions

• Main Author: Kisanga, Sarah E.
• Published: Nottingham Trent University 2017
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.728848

This study explored academic and social barriers, students with Sensory Impairment (SI) in Tanzania's Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) face and their coping strategies throughout their studies. Three major objectives guided this study. First, it investigated academic barriers students with SI encounter in their studies. Second, it identified social barriers students with SI face in their studies and third, it established strategies students with SI employ to cope with the barriers they face in their studies. A case study design was used to collect data from 27 students with SI, selected purposively from two HEIs in Tanzania. Semi-structured interviews, open-ended questionnaires and focus group discussions were used in data collection and thematic analysis was employed to analyse data. The findings show that, although scarcity of learning and teaching resources and teachers/lecturers' exclusionary practices constitute major academic barriers to students with visual and hearing impairment, a communications barrier was a major academic barrier to students with hearing impairment. Other academic barriers were examinations and information inaccessibility, barriers in curriculum, and environmental inaccessibility. Furthermore, the study found attitudinal barriers such as society's negative perception of individuals with SI as "incapable", "a burden" and "beggars", which resulted into social isolation and difficulties in making and keeping friendship. Students with SI used both problem-focused and emotional-focused coping strategies to manage educational barriers encountered. Based on the study’s findings, it is recommended that the government should review its national budget in the education sector, to consider students with special education needs in inclusive education settings. Moreover, there should be a community involvement in the provision of special learning and teaching resources. In addition, there should be a transformation of teachers’ pedagogy through compulsory training to all teachers in inclusive education settings as well as transformation in teachers and societal negative attitudes towards disabled people for inclusive education settings to fit for these students. Finally, coping with educational barriers requires the collaboration of support from students with SI themselves, teachers/lecturers, parents/spouses, siblings, readers and note-takers, non-disabled students as well as government and non-governmental organisations.