INTEGRATE CHILDREN WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY INTO SCHOOLS

The Director of the Special Education Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mrs Victoria Donkor, has lauded the inclusion of children with disability in the mainstream education system.

She said their inclusion would help stop discrimination against the physically challenged.

Mrs Odonkor said this in an interview with the Junior Graphic at the 40th anniversary celebration of the education and training of persons with intellectual disability at the GNAT Hall in Accra.

According to her, the inclusive programme of the new education reform that is now a pilot project is good for children with disability, “since segregation makes them feel neglected”.

Mrs Odonkor said children with intellectual disability are not a liability and they should be given the needed support to reach their potential, adding that disability is a national issue that needed to be addressed with all the needed support and not discrimination from society.

Currently a pilot project is ongoing in five districts, namely, the New Juaben, Ho, Akim Oda, Damongo and Oda districts with the assistance of specially trained teachers.

She, however, revealed that the pilot project was facing the challenge of insufficient number of specially trained teachers as well as that of infrastructure.

According to her, training and the provision of incentives to teachers to handle children with intellectual disability as well as the provision of school structures that are friendly to such students would help with their integration into the mainstream.

Mr Alexander Tetteh, National Administrator for the Ghana Society for the Physically Disabled (GSPD), and an advocate for children with disability, said the initiative would help to curb discrimination against the physically challenged.

He added that it was time people or children with disability were integrated into schools and society, adding that that “would build their confidence and self-esteem.”