Effect of Societal Prejudice on the Educational Attainment of Persons with Disabilities in Nigeria (Published)
The educational sector in Nigeria has attracted numerous debates among scholars particularly with regard to unequal opportunities for the citizenry. The persons with disabilities in the society have experienced the brunt of these unequal opportunities to education as they are little or no facilities available to aid their educational process. In addition, societal prejudices continues to deny them opportunities to attain heights of educations as families see them as burden and a waste of funds educating them. This is particularly worsened by religious and cultural inspired prejudices that tend to derogate persons with disabilities. This paper therefore seeks to investigate the impact of religious and cultural inspired prejudices on the educational attainment of persons with disabilities in Nigeria as well as the impact of societal prejudice on policy implementations that favour the education of persons with disabilities. To achieve these objectives, the study adopted the descriptive survey research approach and the target population for this study comprised of students, teachers, administrators within Oshimili South local government of Delta State. A sample of 26 administrators, 280 students and 228 teachers were selected and data collected using a structured questionnaire, while data was analyzed employing descriptive and content analysis. The relationship between variables was tested employing the chi-square test. The results from the research establish that education impacts national development in the country. In addition, the finding indicates that religious and cultural prejudices impacts the educational attainment of persons with disabilities in the society and this is worsened by the inadequate number of policies and infrastructures that aid in quality education for the persons with disabilities in the country.
Keywords: Disabilities, Education, Prejudice, persons