Inclusive education in community schools in Gaza: a baseline study

Abstract

This study is part of the implementation of the Inclusive Early Childhood Education project, which consisted of training educators from community schools in the districts of Xai-xai and Manjacaze, in matters of development, education and Special Educational Needs and in evaluating the impact of the same. For the conduction of this, three population groups were considered, 1123 children aged between 3 and 5 years old, distributed in 18 schools in the two districts, 48 ​​kindergarten teachers and parents and guardians of the children that make up the population studied. This was an action research with a qualitative and quantitative design and used the interview, naturalistic observation, PORTAGE, and the questionnaire as data collection instruments. At the beginning, two training packages for educators called maximum and minimum were designed, administered and supervised differently and one group did not receive any training (treatment) for 9 months[1]. In the end, the three groups were evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively through the children's performance in order to understand whether or not there were differences in the performance of the children who had activities with the three groups of educators. The assessment had five indicators: learning outcomes; presence and retention of children; satisfaction and well-being; educators' capabilities; and community involvement. The results reveal no differences between the three groups, as the children showed the same level of progress regardless of the conditions applied by the research team.

[1] Research funded by Save the Children – Mozambique.