SENSITIZATION CAMPAIGN ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION POLICY: XRAYING THE EDUCATION OF GIFTED AND TALENTED CHILDREN

OJEDAPO, David O. Ph.D, & UKOFIA, I. B. F. ,
Department of Educational Psychology,
Guidance and Counselling,
School of Education,
Federal College of Education (Technical), Omoku,
Rivers State, Nigeria.
Corresponding Email: davidojedapo@fcetomoku.edu.ng

Abstract
The federal government approved the national policy on inclusive education in 2015. Servicing learners in the inclusion education classroom gives meaning to the idea of equalizing educational opportunities for all children, their physical, mental and emotional disabilities aside. Since the establishment of this policy, not much has been documented about how well the stakeholders are aware of it and accruing benefits. This study the difference between the experimental and control groups concerning parents and teachers’ awareness prior and after sensitization campaign on inclusive education policy for the gifted and talented children. Quasi-experimental research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study comprised 9862 parents and 4738 teachers. The sample size for the study was 1400 respondents. Questionnaire was used for data collection. One research question and one hypothesis was formulated for this study. Data was analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics version 26. The research question raised was answered using descriptive statistics while the hypothesis was analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). A significant difference was found for the education of the Gifted and talented children. The effect size of the sensitization treatment on the study participants reported through partial eta squared is very high implying sensitization campaign on inclusive education had a positive impact on the respondents . It was recommended that all school administrators, teachers, parents and the populace in Ogba /Egbema /Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State should be urgently sensitized regarding the government policy that promotes inclusive education for persons and children who are gifted and talented.

Keywords: Gifted and talented children, inclusive education, persons with special need, Sensitization campaign