Philosophical Foundations of Inclusive Education Policy in Nigeria: A Critical Analysis

This study provides a critical philosophical analysis of the foundations underlying Nigeria's inclusive education policy framework, examining the ethical premises, rights-based arguments, and pragmatic rationales that have shaped policy evolution. Inclusive education in Nigeria has been framed in successive policy documents primarily as a rights obligation derived from international conventions including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Salamanca Statement. However, the philosophical coherence and practical implications of this rights framing in a resource-constrained Nigerian context have not been critically interrogated. This study adopts a qualitative analytical design, using documentary analysis of Nigeria's Special Education policy documents, the National Policy on Education, and international inclusion frameworks as primary sources. Critical discourse analysis is applied to examine how philosophical premises are constructed and operationalised in policy language. Findings reveal internal tensions between the rights-based rhetoric of inclusion and the pragmatic provisions that implicitly reinforce segregated special education provision. The policy's philosophical foundation draws selectively on liberal individualism while inadequately addressing communal and cultural dimensions of disability that are significant in Nigerian social contexts. The study concludes that Nigeria's inclusive education policy requires a more philosophically coherent foundation that integrates rights, ubuntu-inspired communal ethics, and pragmatic realism about implementation constraints. It recommends a national philosophical framework review that brings together disability rights advocates, education philosophers, and community representatives to articulate a contextually grounded inclusion philosophy for Nigerian education.

Keywords: inclusive education, philosophy of education, policy analysis, Nigeria, disability rights.