ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the learning experiences of female learners with visual, hearing, and physical impairment during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kalangala, a hard-to-reach remote island district in Uganda. It specifically examines the experiences of female learners with disabilities in terms of access and utilisation of education materials provided by the Ministry of Education and Sports during closure of education institutions. Informed by critical disability theory and a social model of disability, the data collection was undertaken using in-depth interviews with female learners with special needs and key informant interviews with parents, teachers, and community leaders. The data, analysed using thematic analysis, showed that, first, the learning materials provided by the government of Uganda during the pandemic were largely inaccessible to learners with disabilities. Second, these materials were ineffective in addressing the learning needs of students with disabilities like deafness and blindness, as well as those with physical disabilities who were unable to access designated lesson-viewing centres. Third, learning for students with disabilities were inhibited by myriad factors including unreliable electricity and Internet network signals, lack of education support services, scarcity of resources to purchase Internet data, or tools such as radios, televisions, and computers/smartphones, limited parental capacity to support learning, as well as gendered constraints such as teenage pregnancies and discrimination. The study concludes that government education interventions during pandemics like COVID-19 should be more inclusive to ensure that marginalised groups such as learners with disabilities are not excluded from opportunities that support continuity of learning.
