Home

Space in special needs schools a challenge

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Lack of space in special needs education facilities remains a challenge for those living with disabilities across the country.

This is despite interventions by the Department of Education to ensure that disabled children are catered for.

About 70 % of children living with disabilities cannot be placed in special needs schools, as the facilities only have place for a small number of children.

While many are excited about the schools opening on Wednesday, Ryno Minnie, who was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of five, is traumatised as going to school is a challenge.

Ryno lives in Port Elizabeth‘s northern areas and the nearest school that caters for children with his condition is an hour away.

He attended Bethvale Primary school close to his house but dealing with the standard curriculum is a struggle for the 13-year-old.

This led to him dropping out of school in Grade seven.

Ryno’s father, Joachim Minnie, says Ryno should have been in Grade 10 this year, but will spend another year at home:

“He can’t learn in school, in that type of school, he gets beaten. Every time they force him to do something he cannot get it right and he gets frustrated, and when we want him to go back, he cries. He says ‘Daddy I cannot do this job, the school is too much. I want a proper school where I can work with my hands.’ Somebody must help him to get a better school. If government can stand by me and sponsor me for him to go to a better school.”

The system needs to change

According to the Human Rights Report compiled in 2015, about 900 000 children in South Africa aged between five and 18 are living with disabilities.

Nearly 600 000 of these children are not in formal education facilities.

Sheldon Rockman from Port Elizabeth is one of those children that cannot go to a special needs school, due to lack of space.

His father, Peter Rockman, says they have lost hope:

“He was born like this and there is nothing that we can do about it. Sometimes when he comes home he says that the children tease him at school. We spoke to the teacher and she spoke to the pupils, but the problem is his education. We want to take him further ahead and someday we won’t be there, that worries us.”

The special needs facilities require small classes, to provide individualised education. Another challenge facing them is lack of teachers trained to deal with special needs children.

Educational Specialist, Susan van Rensburg, says the system needs to change:

“It’s not the child that needs to be sent elsewhere to a special school, the system needs to adapt do accommodate the child. By that we don’t say that all children need to attend a normal school of course you have extreme cases. It’s not just me saying that because the 1994 Salamanca agreement was made to move in the direction of an inclusive education to embrace the special education needs and our own country adopted the white paper in 2001 and we are now 16 years down the line and we are not really making progress in terms of inclusive education.”

The Department of Education has built six special schools in the Eastern Cape over the past four years.

Head of Department, Themba Kojana, says they have plans to train more remedial teachers:

“We have actually employed more than 39 districts based support teams. I think there are 62 if I’m not mistaken. The team comprises of physiotherapist, psychologist, so that they will be based in 12 districts, but over and above that during the declaration of the past establishment for schools, the MEC declared 2188 posts for remedial teachers for the same thing to equip our learners.”

Parents of children with special needs are calling for more facilities to be set up, so that their children are equipped with the necessary skills for the job market.

Click on the video below for more on the story:

Author

MOST READ