FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST PARTICIPATION OF FEMALES WITH DISABILITIESIN OPEN DISTANCE LEARNING OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Despite efforts made by the Government to provide equal educational opportunities for all citizens, the level of women with disabilities participation in education is still low. This paper made an attempt to examine the factors militating against participation of females with disabilities in open distance learning with a view to finding out what can be done to redress the imbalance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design and a purposive sampling technique was employed to select 60 female students with disabilities in Federal college of education Oyo special. Three research questions guided the study. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire tagged “Socio-cultural, economic and religious factors affecting females’ education questionnaire (SCREFAFEQ)”with a reliability coefficient of 0.71.The data collected were analyzed using simple mean and standard deviation.  The results revealed that socio-cultural affect the participation of females with disabilities as parent believe the education of females as a waste since they will end up in the kitchen. Lack of religious knowledge and issues of poverty also constitute their lower participation. Based on these findings, it was recommended that Enactment of legal policy against parents refusing educating of females with disabilities enrolment in schools to certification level; Religions should not be seen as a barrier to educate females with disabilities in any respect to cultural endowments in our society.

Keywords

• disabilities
• women with disabilities
• open distance learning

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