CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Ours is a society that has yet to see
past dependency on a persons physical appearance in valuing the person.
What still determines for the average Nigerian parent their children’s
academic pursuit is physical appearance and gender. While many argument
have been made against the latter few have begun to engage the question
of the former. Even in jobs and positions that require purely the
intellectual deposit of the individual, attention is paid more on the
physical appearance.
This is ironically seeing that
statistically, Nigeria has a very high number of disabled children
especially in the northern part of the country. So that the question
always lingers and asking what the situation is in the face of this
number. When a whooping number of the country’s future work force is
physically impaired, one would immediately assume that considerable
effort has been put into creating an enabling environment educationally
to help assuage there disability and find ways to make sure they
contribute almost all of their inherent potentials as we find achieved
in developed countries.
Unfortunately, we haven’t gone past the
stage of understanding that a child’s being disabled is hardly a
deterrent to his achieving anything. Again, this goes hand in hand with
the lack of an educational orientation in the north. Compared to other
regions of the country the Muslim dominated north is still lagging
behind academically, so that solving this present problem requires
solving another.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
It is a very disappointing feeling when a
child is born physically disabled. And ironically, the burden is felt
more by the parents. The child, if he is born with this disability
always learns to cope with it and in most cases sees his condition as
normal till he grows up and begin seeing he isn’t very much like other
but by that time he has acquired for himself adaptive mechanisms. The
parents on the other hand invest so much emotion in the handicap and see
only that in him or her. Through time, these invested limited
perception of the child sediment into attitudes that stifle their
overall educational plans for the child, if there are any in the first
place.
This is the problem that has called this
research into being namely to inquire into parental attitudes towards
the education of their disabled children with parents of Muslim children
as a case study.
1.3 Research Questions
1.3.1 To what extend do the attitude of these parents affect the education of their disabled children.
1.3.2 How much cultural orientation inform these attitudes.
1.3.3 Is the education of the parents a panacea out of many for combating the issue.
1.3.4 How much can government and
Muslim leaders help in reorienting the parents and children in the face
of the above problem.
1.4 Objectives of the Study
The purpose of this research work is to
diligently study the attitude of parents to the education of their
disabled Muslim children. In doing so we hope to map out the tones of
these attitudes, how they are formed, the process of it’s formation and
it’s implications on the well being of the child, his mental health and
self worth.
The process through which this attitude
is formed will help in determining the recommendations that will be made
at the end of this research work.
1.5 Significance of the Study
This research work will shed the much
needed light on one of the most cogent reasons why the Muslim parts of
the country are today the least educated and by extension formulate a
clear picture of the factors behind the underdevelopment of the region.
This research work is of importance to
hospitals and child healthcare provider. This is as the presentation of
the attitudes of the parents on the education of their children and how
these attitudes are formed will provide them with tools with which to
counsel them in the event that their children become disabled whether at
birth or later on.
The prevalence of cases of polio in the
Muslim north has shaped the way residents view the sickness and
consequently their psychological submission to it and allowing it shape
the future of the child.
1.6 Research Hypothesis
Every research is an enquiry into the
truth, correctness or feasibility or falsehood of an assumption. Here,
the assumption is that a child’s physical state determines Muslim
parent’s attitudes toward his or her education.
1.7 Scope of the Study
This research work focuses on parents of
Muslim disabled children. This is so as most cases of child disability
are found in the Muslim populated regions so that a better and wider
study and can made there. And since majority if these parents in
question are uneducated, the questionnaire form of gathering data might
not be workable so the interview form and literature review would be
used. The disabilities to be emphasized are the physical ones as the
mentally impaired are usual surrounded by a different set of factors
altogether.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
As pointed out in the scope of the
present study, the questionnaire form of gathering data might not work
here as most of the parents in question are in themselves illiterates.
The implication is that the researcher has to conduct personal interview
which takes time and resources and limits the number of case studies.
1.9 Definition of Terms
Disability
This includes any impairment an
individual might be living with. It may be physical, mental or involve
the hampering of physical and mental development that make living a
normal life relatively difficult for those living with it.