Educational services for children with special educational needs in Zambia : a human development and capability approach

Abstract: Children with special educational needs (CSEN) are exceptional learners. They are not handicapped, but merely living with a disability of one kind or the other. Handicaps are the disadvantages faced when society does not enable them to fulfil their lives. Idioms such as children are the future generation or the leaders of tomorrow are common and overly used today, hence the need for greater and more nuanced effort in preparing them for future responsibilities. Implementing education services for children with special education needs in Zambia comes with challenges. The predicament of diversity among various learners in Zambia is evident as the results of this study illustrate. The lack of a child database, nature of disability and distance from school, apt learning materials and choice of school placement are some of the issues educationalists and parents have to deal with in making education participation possible for exceptional learners. Informed by the transformative philosophy and the theory of Social Inclusion, this qualitative desk study has been carried out purposefully to examine the factors hindering the implementation of services for CSEN at all levels of their education and / but more specifically, beyond their primary schooling. In the paper, the use of content and thematic analysis has enabled the author to understand the identified views emerging from the study which have then been classified and arranged according to themes. The themes, based on the findings are further analysed through the lens of Amartya Sen’s Human Development and Capability Approach. The findings of the study indicate that education implementation dilemmas in Zambia are multi-dimensional. Hence, the argument presented here is that building the capacities of children by providing arange of educational opportunities and choices opens doors to many other necessaries of life such as employment. Using the Human Development and Capability Approach as a tool for analysis, the paper evaluates  the functioning of the education system, the well-being of children and how they fit into the social arrangements of society. Put simply, the process of social inclusion is introduced and highlighted as a significant process in the overall development of CSEN.