DELIVERING QUALITY EDUCATION THROUGH INCLUSIVE TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PEDAGOGIES IN KENYA Theme: Innovations for Quality Education and Lifelong Learning Sub-theme: Innovation Strand: Equity and Inclusion Authors: Lydia Chege 1 , Samuel Juma 2 , Fridah Kiambati 3 , Mutiso T. Wambua 4 Abstract Delivery of quality and equitable inclusive education requires innovative approaches in teacher preparation. Transition of learners with disabilities to secondary schools and their retention therein has been impaired by lack of teacher preparedness. Teacher Professional Development (TPD) requires involvement of teachers individually and collectively. There has been lack of a systematic continued capacity development of teachers to deliver quality education in inclusive setting. Kenya Institute of Special Education in collaboration with Commonwealth of Learning (COL) conducted a study to explore how inclusive teacher professional development strategies can be used as a driver of access to quality education and lifelong learning for all. The aim of the study was to explore the use of teacher communities of practice made up of teacher educators and practicing teachers as an innovative step in building teacher professional capacity in inclusive education. The study involved 39 classroom teachers, 12 head teachers and 6 policy makers in the education sector. Semi structured questionnaires were used to collect data from the respondents and data analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The study revealed that creating a network for specialist teachers to meet and share the teaching of concepts with teachers of regular schools in secondary schools is positively correlated with enrolment of learners with learning disabilities, improved school infrastructure as well as improved subject performance among many students. It was also found that the community of teachers sharing knowledge makes teaching of abstract topics easy to teach regardless of whether the learner has a disability or not. The study concludes that: inclusive teacher professional development pedagogies are instrumental in enhancing student support and personalized learning; teachers need networks, where they link up and share on new and developing methodologies that are effective in delivering academic content to a diverse community of learners including those with disabilities. Key Words: Teacher professional Development, Inclusive Pedagogies, Innovation Mode of Presentation: This is a research paper that will be presented using a power point presentation. The presenter shall engage in a question and answer session with the participants after the presentation. 1 Introduction Delivering quality and relevant education to learners as a means of preparing a solid foundation for the present and future generation is a primary concern of all governments across the globe. The sustainable development goals (SDG 4) calls for ensuring provision of quality, equitable and inclusive education, and provision of lifelong learning opportunities for all. In the past decades, access to education was seen as an enabler to poverty alleviation especially in many African countries and Southern Asia (Kalyanpur, 2008). Evidence suggest however that access to schools is not a solution in itself if the issue of participation in the learning process is not addressed. When more and more learners are enrolled in schools, teachers require more flexible teaching approaches to cater for the needs of all. As such, continuous teacher professional development cannot be underestimated. However, in many developing counties such as Kenya there is serious lack of systematic and continuous teacher professional development that helps teachers inculcate inclusive pedagogies in the teaching process that can enable as many learners as possible to participant in the learning process (Takahashi, 2011). This lack of systematics teacher 1 Research, Linkages and Partnerships Officer, KISE 2 Research Assistant, KISE 3 COL Coordinator, KISE 4 Director, KISE