ATTITUDE TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION OF PUBLIC JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN GOMBE STATE

The study investigated the attitude towards inclusive education of public junior secondary school teachers in Gombe State. The study was guided by three objectives, three research questions and two hypotheses. The study used the survey design method and the population of the study consisted of all teachers of junior secondary schools in Gombe State. The study population consisted of 2,550 teachers distributed across the 346 public junior secondary schools in the state. Stratified random sampling was used in selecting two schools from each senatorial district and one public special school that the state has, making a total of seven schools. An adapted questionnaire by Joseph Agbenyega named Attitude towards inclusion scale (ATIAS) which has twenty items was used in the study with a reliability of Cronbach alpha of 0.794. Frequencies, percentages and t- test were used in analysing the data that was collected. Findings of the study include: teachers of junior secondary schools in Gombe State have positive attitude towards inclusive education; there wasn’t significant gender difference in the attitude of teachers towards inclusive education in Gombe State; so also there wasn’t any significant difference in the attitude of teachers of regular and special school towards inclusive education in Gombe State. Based on the findings the researcher recommended that teacher training institutions should have special education courses as core courses in their curriculum to allow teachers in training have adequate knowledge and skills of how to handle all students in respective of challenges. Workshops and seminars should be conducted for teachers in our secondary schools on inclusive education. Adequate materials and facilities to cater for the physically challenged are to be provided by the government in our secondary schools. The environment of our schools should be such that caters for the welfare of all students.