Quality education for all: strengthening tools and practices to support disability-inclusive learning environments in early childhood development and education settings in Kenya

Sightsavers and the Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) explored how the Brief Early Childhood Quality Inventory (BEQI) toolkit could provide teachers with greater support in creating inclusive learning environments for children with disabilities and additional needs attending public, mainstream pre-primary schools.

The BEQI is a learning environment assessment toolkit developed by ECD Measure to assess the quality of early childhood education (ECE) programmes for children at pre-school level. In Kenya, it is used within the context of Schools2030, a global, 10-country, 10-year participatory learning improvement programme led by the Aga Khan Foundation aimed at putting teachers and school communities in the driving seat of designing low-cost, holistic learning innovations in their classrooms and beyond.

The specific study objectives were to:

• Understand how BEQI tool supports pre-primary teachers in identifying and responding to disability-inclusion needs, and how the tool’s support for disability-inclusive learning environments could be further enhanced. Exploration of primary and secondary school learning environment assessment tools was also done to contextualise research and contribute to the refinement of the pre-primary tool and guidance.
• Collaboratively develop and pilot an adjusted version of the BEQI tool and guidance, drawing on teachers’ understanding of and experiences in creating disability-inclusive learning environments.
• Describe experiences of Kenyan pre-primary schoolteachers in using the enhanced BEQI tool and guidance and assess how the enhanced tools support teachers in their adaptation of teaching practices and learning environments for greater disability inclusion.
• Understand what is needed for wider adoption of the Schools2030 learning environment tools and guidance within public sector early years education in Kenya, in support of broader inclusive and disability-inclusive learning environments.

The study used participatory action research methodology to collect data through focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, documentary photography, classroom observations and two participatory action workshops.

The study was conducted in Homa Bay and Mombasa Counties in Kenya with logistical and coordination support of Aga Khan Foundation, Madrassa Early Childhood Programme, ECD Measure and the County Governments of Homa Bay and Mombasa. The research activities were organised in two phases as follows:

Phase 1 took place from July 2024 to April 2025, and involved:

• A review of the BEQI toolkit by inclusive education specialists at Sightsavers, generating recommendations for adjustments to the toolkit to strengthen its inclusion of children with disabilities or additional needs.
• Data collection comprising focus group discussions (FDGs) with teachers and BEQI enumerators, documentary photography with teachers and in-depth interviews (IDIs) with government education stakeholders, representatives of organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), and parents of young children with disabilities or additional needs in Homa Bay and Mombasa.
• A participatory action workshop (PAW 1) where researchers and study participants collaboratively discussed and validated research findings including proposed adjustments to the BEQI toolkit. The study team then developed these adjustments into a package for piloting in Phase 2 of the study.

The pilot package included the following components implemented in addition to the standard BEQI toolkit and training:

• Disability awareness and inclusion training for BEQI enumerators, alongside standard BEQI reliability training.
• Observable characteristics handout provided to enumerators and teachers to support recognition of children who might have disabilities or additional needs.
• Inclusion of additional questions in the BEQI observation form.
• Disability focused self-reflection tool for teachers exploring inclusion needs of two children to be completed alongside the standard self-assessment questionnaire.
• Inclusion tips sent to teachers together with the standard BEQI feedback, after observation.

Phase 2 ran from May to November 2025, and involved:

• Pilot of the BEQI toolkit, with adjustments to strengthen support for children with additional needs for 29 pre-school teachers.
• Data collection comprising FGDs with teachers and BEQI enumerators.
• Another participatory workshop (PAW 2) where study findings were reviewed and validated.

• All teachers acknowledged the presence of children with disabilities or additional needs in their classrooms.
• These children received some support from teachers, school administration, county and national government, OPDs, NGOs and other education system stakeholders.
• Despite this, several challenges remained including stigma and discrimination, late or delayed identification of difficulties or additional needs, limited access to assessment and support.
• The overall experiences of teachers and enumerators with the adapted disability-inclusive BEQI toolkit were positive.
• Teachers were particularly appreciative of the observable characteristics handout, and most teachers had positive experiences in relation to the observation process and the feedback received. Enumerators valued the training on inclusion of children with disabilities or additional needs and were able to record information about inclusion and exclusion in classrooms they observed.
• However, some modifications and additional training requirements were found necessary to enhance inclusion of children with disabilities or additional needs.
• Further work to test additional edits to the observation tool will be valuable, as will work to refine self-reflection and feedback processes.
• Research to assess impact of use of the adapted BEQI toolkit on inclusive teaching practices would be important.

• Research poster for CIES 2025 conference