Identifying the obstacles faced by special education teachers in Saudi Arabia in developing professional expertise

Background

Special education for people with physical or mental disabilities can be one of the most empowering services to them. Special education, or special needs education, is a method of educating the physically or mentally challenged, taking into consideration their individual needs. Since education remains a public policy issue for most countries, special education should also be a topic of interest for the government and other policymakers and stakeholders. Educators involved in special education, guardians of the people with learning disabilities and the physically or mentally challenged people themselves are directly affected by the quality of special education provided. Hence, any policy measures directed at regulating, improving and extending special education services affects all these stakeholders in different capacities.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is a country that has been focusing greatly on improving its education system in recent years. Special education services are naturally part of this reform process. Special education services started in Saudi Arabia only in 1958, when blind people were provided such service in some institutes. This was followed by opening of Department of Special Learning in the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education in 1962, creation of three specialised institutes for students with blindness in 1964, and later opening of an institute for students with deafness and with mental retardation in 1972 . By 2015, Saudi Arabia had nearly 4,800 institutes and programs catering over 63,000 students with special needs, which, however, was far lower than about 665,000 number of people estimated to be in need of special education, who constituted roughly 13.2% of the student population of the Kingdom at that time . This indicates an urgent need for extending special education services to the unserved student population of Saudi Arabia. However, improvement in the service is also very important in ensuring extension of quality education in the most efficient manner. Developing expertise of the special education teachers lies at the heart of this issue. Any hindrances in attaining such expertise by the teachers curtails the effectiveness of policy decisions targeted at improving special education services.
This research is focused towards identifying any obstacles faced by Saudi Arabian special education teachers in attaining expertise in their respective field. The research also will try to evaluate any hindrances that may occur during the process of mainstreaming special education students.

Research Question

What are the major obstacles faced by special education teachers in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in attaining higher level of expertise and professional competence in their subject domain?