Special needs access to public education

We need to teach in the way that children can learn.
We need to teach in the way that children can learn.

DR RADICA MAHASE

SINCE the reopening of school, Support Autism T&T has been inundated with calls from parents expressing concerns about their child’s education. Many of these calls focused on those children attending public schools, both government and government-assisted.

One parent was concerned because her seven-year-old daughter is in a new class with a new teacher. The parent noted that the last teacher understood her daughter’s special needs (she was diagnosed with autism and is high-functioning) but this new teacher “didn’t seem too concerned or interested in my child.”

She stated, “In the first week of school, the teacher told my daughter that she is stupid and put her to stand up outside the class three times. My daughter cannot sit still for very long and the teacher told her she’s a troublemaker and she doesn’t want her in her class.”

Every single child can learn, once taught in a way that is appealing to him or her.

Another parent said he needed to find another school for his six-year-old son immediately. In this case, the child was being bullied by the other children. This father said, “For the whole of last week, my son came home crying and insisted that he did not want to go back to school. He said the older children call him stupid and they pushed him. He told his teacher and his teacher told him that he has to learn to fend for himself.”

Sadly, this is the reality of life for many children with special needs who attend public schools here. Unfortunately, our country is not ready for inclusion of those with special needs into the public school system. As a country, our education system has not placed any importance on people with special needs or different abilities. Our entire system, from pre-school to tertiary level, has been and still is all geared towards academic excellence. It has focused more on cramming and passing exams. Our mentality and the way we perceive those with special needs are even worst; most people think that someone with special needs cannot learn. The thing is, people with autism and other special needs have problems learning the way we teach today because our entire methods of teaching is outdated, boring and not stimulating to children.

In order for children with special needs to be included in public schools we need to ensure that the system can accommodate them. It is not impossible if the following is done:

Teachers must be

properly-trained.

We cannot expect teachers with no knowledge or experience of teaching children with special needs to be able to teach effectively. In many cases it is left to the individual teacher to find out about different abilities and to teach the child accordingly. This is unfair to the teacher. They need to be properly trained in modern teaching methods and more importantly, they need to be given the tools to teach effectively.

The school and class need to be sensitised to the child’s needs.

You cannot put a child with special needs and expect the other children, or even the teachers, to know how to treat that child. Some might say that the child might feel different and be treated differently, etc. But if letting others know about the child’s special needs can prevent the child from being bullied by students and teachers isn’t that the better option?

Train and hire teaching aides

Many children who are high-functioning can perform well in a public school environment if they have a teaching aide at their side. Teachers cannot give individual attention to a special needs child when they have an entire class of students to teach. Sadly, the Ministry of Education has not been allocating teaching aides and presently there are parents who have been waiting for five years and more to get a teaching aide for their child.

Develop a firm national education policy

This policy must not only recognise people with special needs and different abilities but must be implemented properly throughout the school system. Although our present policy sounds great on paper, in practise it is just a sham as special-needs parents deal with an often unsupportive student support services – too many stories from parents of having to wait years for assessments, teaching aides and support of any kind.

Generally, a public school environment can cause more harm than good to a child unless the whole concept of educational inclusion is properly conceptualised and implemented. The Ministry of Education is yet to do this.

Dr Radica Mahase is founder/director, Support Autism T&T

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