__________________

Acute shortage of special needs teachers and stigma have been singled out as some of the key factors why learners with disabilities are dropping out of schools.

Salome Apolot, the Serere district inspector of schools in charge of special needs education, states that despite the existence of government policies on inclusive education, a majority of schools don’t have special needs education. 

According to her, the lack of special education teachers has significant implications for learners with disabilities. 

The most affected are learners with vision impairment, blind, and dumb, hence the need for the government to recruit more special needs teachers.

Apolot is optimistic that recruiting more special needs teachers will enable children with related disabilities to access education.



In a related development, the secretary for education and health in Serere district Sam Olupot suggests that it should be mandatory that the Ministry of Education employs at least four teachers per school with special needs education program training, facilitate them, and increase their salaries for motivation.

He points out that pupils with disabilities who are integrated with normal learners are like tourists at school because they don’t get attention due to a lack of teachers.