CONSTRAINTS EXPERIENCED BY TEACHERS OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS: A QUANTITATIVE INQUIRY

Abstract

Teachers of children with special needs require undivided focus and attention of all their energies in planning and teaching process to make the process of learning beneficial and smooth for these children (Allam & Martin, 2021). However, there are many hindrances that make the teaching process challenging for special educationists such as lack of parental and administrative support, environmental hazards, personal limitations and colleagues’ attitudes among others (Ahammed, 2021; Sikanku, 2018). The study aims to identify the constraints of teachers serving in special education institutions through a descriptive research The population comprised teachers of special education schools in Punjab. Convenient sampling technique was used to select 200 teachers as a sample. Out of 200, 50 were teacher of children with Physical Impairment (PI), 50 were teacher of children with Visual Impairment (VI), 50 teaching to children with Hearing Impairment (HI), while 50 teachers of children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). The tool comprised a questionnaire with 38 items duly validated and piloted before formal data collection. Findings indicate that highly reported barriers by teachers of all major disabilities in Pakistan include parents and administration related barriers. No significant difference has been identified among challenges of teachers regarding their gender or the disability they were working with.