Inclusive Education Experts Advocate Policies for Children with Disabilities
Funmi Ogundare
Experts in the inclusive education sector yesterday, called on the government to put more efforts towards implementing policies that would benefit children with disabilities, saying such move would go a long way in ensuring that they have access to quality education.
The experts who made this known during a webinar on, ‘Advancing Inclusive Education in Africa ‘, organised by The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre, explained the importance of teacher professional development, curriculum development, community awareness on inclusive education as well as holding government accountable.
Disability and Inclusion Specialist, Ubongo Learning, Tanzania, Hussein Ally Hussein, highlighted some of the challenges to inclusive education which he said included policy development and implementation, cultural barriers, discrimination and stigmatisation, shortage of teachers especially in rural areas and poor resources allocation, among others.
He stated that inclusive education required special social acceptance, while expressing concern that beliefs and misconception such as these, may hinder its acceptance and affect enrollment into schools for children with disabilities.
“This is a very big problem that hinder the inclusive education especially in African countries. Another challenge is that teachers don’t attend pre-service training to meet up with the requirements and needs considering the huge change in education.
“So if they don’t have access to professional development, there will be shortage of staff to handle pupils in inclusive classrooms,” he stated.
Hussein, explained that there should be special support and learning approaches for children with disabilities, noting that doing so would bring about a friendly environment for them to learn.
“We do a lot of talking in Africa. There has to be more on implementation and community awareness which should begin at the family level.
“The family level has a huge support because they have links with the larger community. Most of the leaders of the community come from the family and if they have a good background, it will help in creating progress for inclusive education in our countries.”
The Founder, Raising Star Africa Foundation, Mr. Michael Showunmi, stressed the need for parents of children with special needs to be engaged in their education, adding that role models who have disabilities should also be involved to drive advocacy on such through awareness campaign.
“All stakeholders need to be on board. We need to work more on sensitisation and transfer of knowledge on inclusive education. Disability awareness cannot be overemphasised. Our curriculum is archaic and needs to be revamped. Inclusive education should require a multifaceted approach.
“Teachers should be ambassadors of learning for children with disabilities. They need to go the extra length to facilitate learning within the school system. If parents are not getting involved in what we do in school, it will take a longer time for us to see the impact,” he stressed.
