DEOs want more teachers for children with disabilities

By Eddie Ssejjoba  
                  
District Education Officers have asked government to appoint more teachers to handle children with special needs, saying many of these children have unique problems that demand for more time to handle.

Michael Obuya, acting District Education officer in Bukedea said the teacher-pupil ratio for children with special needs was too low in most schools yet managing such children was a big challenge.

He appealed to the ministry of education, science, technology and sports to urgently address the teacher problem.


A teacher teaching a nursery class at Buckley High School Iganga

He said each of the pupils needs more time to be attended to since their learning and retention capacity was low as compared to other normal children.

Obuya also asked the ministry to allocate more funds for the purchase of instructional materials in order to create an appropriate learning environment for children with special needs, citing an example of the visually impaired learners who can only learn by touching, using special instructional materials.

He said children with special needs were not catered for under the Universal Primary Education funding, with many schools unable to furnish their classes and buying teaching and learning materials.

Obuya made the remarks after leading a group of District Inspectors of Schools and District Education Officers who conducted a field inspection of several schools as part of their training in school inspection, monitoring and implementation of education policies conducted at Bishop Willis Core Primary Teachers' College in Iganga district.


Children in class at Buckley High School Iganga

The educationists from the Eastern Region are also expected to train associate assessors who will help in inspecting schools and give reports to the education offices in every district for quick action by the ministry. 

 The educationists were impressed by teachers at Buckley High School who handled Joel Isabirye, a deaf and blind pupil who expressed a lot of interest in learning using the available instructional materials.

Two teachers, a male and female attend to Isabirye, but he needs a lot of time to grasp, including communication because it is done by touching.  

The school has another section of children with special needs, who were mainly deaf but lacking instructional materials.
Leah Mbeiza, one of the teachers said some deaf children had added disabilities like mental retardation and needed longer hours and a lot of patience to understand.

Student teachers of Bishop Willis Core PTC performing for DEOs who attended a training workshop

"Some of these children need a teacher to have a lot of patience because they forget very fast and pay less attention to what is being taught. They learn from obstruct but they are not exposed to some of the materials needed," she said. 

It implies that many of the children have to touch and feel what is being taught to them in order to grasp it.

Education officers interview a pupil during their inspection at Buckley High School

The DEOs and inspectors asked the ministry to create a special fund to train more teachers and facilitate them to identify these children from communities and enrol them in schools.
 
The training was facilitated by the directorate of education standards, Uganda Teacher Schools Effectiveness Project (UTSEP).