Achieving Sustainable Inclusive and Equitable Education: A Practical Approach Among the Pastoralist Communities in Kenya

Abstract

Education is an indispensable tool that drives development and transforms societies for sustainable development. Policy frameworks at global and national levels dispense legal and uniform discourses on strategies to enable equity in the provision of education. Despite the frameworks, children and youths are still out of school, which indicates that the sustainable development agenda could be unattainable within the anticipated timeframe. This study was designed to critically examine and evaluate the practicability of intervention strategies for inclusive education and suggest ways of improving intervention measures for up-scaling the strategies for sustainable learning among Pastoralists. The key questions include; what are the practicability of the intervention strategies for inclusive education within the pastoralist communities? How can the intervention measures be improved for the effectiveness and success of inclusive education? The focus on inclusive education is dwindling, mainly managing those already enrolled in schools, with lags to tap those not in school. The study utilized a multi-method approach of descriptive and correlational designs through a quantitative and qualitative approach, addressing macro and micro-level issues in inclusive education. Findings show that about 50% of the schools had between 1 to 3 teachers thus majority of the classes were unattended during every given lesson. Also, distance to school had some influence on learner enrolment where the findings show an R square of .067.  and a standard error of .51. Strategies applied such as mobile schools to tap learners and enable learning among the pastoralist communities, worked but collapsed due to lack of funds for the needed resources. Beneficiaries from mobile schools are for its reintroduction and up-scaling to enable equitable access to education and sustainable inclusion. This research details effective strategies for enabling inclusive education and widens our understanding of how inclusive education would be implemented, blending with local sociocultural praxis.