Educational Access for Refugee Children with Disabilities: How Teachers Shape Educational Enrollment for Children with Disabilities in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Northwestern Kenya

Background and purpose: Globally, the number of forcibly displaced children is approximately 43.3 million, including 17.5 million refugee and asylum-seeking children, many residing in refugee camps. These children often face multiple vulnerabilities due to traumatic experiences, their refugee status, being unaccompanied and living with disabilities. Kakuma Refugee Camp hosts approximately 3,439 children with disabilities. The intersection of being refugee children and living with a disability significantly impacts their lives, particularly their educational trajectories. Despite the available opportunities to enroll in school, many children with disabilities in Kakuma are not enrolled in inclusive education schools. Whereas studies have shown that teachers are crucial in children’s school enrollment, little is known about their role in school enrollment for refugee children in humanitarian settings. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which individual teachers’ activities are associated with encouraging the enrollment of refugee children with disabilities in Kakuma.

Methods: We used data collected in Kakuma in 2019 (n=118) using a survey of teachers in special needs classrooms and mainstream classroom serving children with special needs. The Teacher Inclusion Checklist used was an adaptation of a self-assessment for teachers, developed by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), and focused on areas such as Participation, Health and Well-Being, Safety and Protection, Enrollment and Completion, Academic Success, Motivation of Teachers, and Community Support. The dependent variable is the enrollment of refugee children with disabilities, measured by the Teacher Inclusion Checklist on a 5-point Likert scale. Independent variables included parental engagement activities, collaboration between parents and teachers & individual teachers’ activities, measured on a 5-point Likert scale. A hierarchical regression was conducted to assess the association of teachers’ activities on the encouragement of refugee children with disabilities to enroll in school.

Results: Results from a regression analysis conducted using SPSS highlight that Model 1 (teaching activities that solely involve parental engagement) was not statistically significant (R²=.013, p<.239). Model 2 (activities that foster collaboration between parents and teachers) and was not significant (R²=.054, p<.115, ΔR²=.041), while Model 3 added teachers’ individual activities and was statistically significant (R²=.30, p<.001, ΔR²=.247). The addition of teachers’ activities explains 24.7% of the variance in the enrollment of refugee children with disabilities (ΔR²=24.7). As the only statistically significant predictor, Teacher’s activity of making learning interesting and involving parents accounted for 24% of the variance in predicting teachers influencing the enrollment of children in school. As teachers’ activity of making learning interesting and involving parents changes there is a predicted 24% change in teachers’ influencing children to enroll (b=.24, β=.35, t₍₉₇₎ = 3.77, p<.001).

Conclusion and implications: The findings highlight teachers’ individual activities enhance the chances of enrollment of refugee children with disabilities. This underscores the importance of teachers in the enrollment of refugee children with disabilities. Future research should explore specific teacher activities that positively impact parent-teacher engagement in the enrollment of children with disabilities in inclusive education schools.