Challenges Facing Special Education Schools in Meeting the Needs of Students with Multiple Disabilities in Borno State

This study examines the challenges facing special education schools in meeting the educational and developmental needs of students with multiple disabilities in Borno State, North East Nigeria. Borno State, at the epicentre of prolonged insecurity and humanitarian crisis in North East Nigeria, presents an extreme context in which the challenges of special education provision are compounded by displacement, infrastructural destruction, and severe resource constraints. Students with multiple disabilities in this environment are among the most marginalised individuals in the country. Using a descriptive mixed-methods approach, the study surveys forty administrators and teachers from eight special and model schools across Maiduguri, supplemented by qualitative interviews with education officers and representatives of operating humanitarian organisations. Quantitative data are analysed using descriptive statistics, while qualitative data undergo thematic analysis. The study investigates challenges across dimensions including staffing, materials, curricula, family engagement, and safety. Findings are expected to reveal that schools operate with severely reduced staff, damaged facilities, and near-total absence of specialist resources, and that students with multiple disabilities receive the least attention within these already resource-stripped environments. Recommendations include incorporating disability-specific provisions into humanitarian education response plans for Borno State and creating emergency deployment mechanisms for specialist special educators. Keywords: multiple disabilities, special education schools, Borno State, humanitarian context, North East Nigeria.