Mukono school 'short of special needs teachers'

Oct 25, 2016

The school is overwhelmed by the fast-growing number of disabled children.

Bishop's Primary School Mukono West is grappling with shortage of qualified teachers for pupils with special needs.

The school is overwhelmed by the fast-growing number of children with physical disabilities and hearing impairment.

"My department has 80 special needs pupils. Forty of them have hearing impairments while the rest have different disabilities," said Monica Kisambira, who heads the special needs children department.

The school has only five teachers to handle this special group of pupils yet, according to Kisambira, they (teachers) are not good in all the subjects "but we use them because we don't have options to choose from".

Both the special needs and ordinary pupils are taught under the inclusive education arrangement.

"But with limited manpower we find it hard to support learners with hearing impairment as we do not have enough interpreters," added Kisambira.

"The teacher-to-pupil ratio does not favor this kind of education program and some children have to wait until a skilled teacher is free to attend to them," said the school's head teacher, Lydia Nakachwa Sekalumba.

"This is affecting their academic progress."

 

She said the special needs children report late to school at the start of every academic term because majority of them lack basic needs to use while at school and their parents are not supportive.

And such delay prevents this group from completing the syllabus in time, weighed in Kisambira.

The challenges the special needs children face at the school include; lack of proper lighting in dormitories, lack of ramps for wheel chairs users and inadequate modified latrines that the disabled children can access.

These concerns were voiced during a celebration held at the school to honour and support learners with disabilities.

The function, dubbed ‘Christmas in October', was organized by Upendo Mikono (charitable hands), a charity founded by Mukuru Herbert, a graduating student of Mass Communication at Uganda Christian University.

The organisation renders material, moral and financial support to the needy, particularly children with special needs children at the school.

Mukuru mobilized friends and classmates to provide food and basic materials to the children with special needs in the school as his way of giving back to some of the needy people in society.

He said that he developed the idea of holding ‘Christmas in October' with an aim of changing the children's diet.

"They feed on beans and posho from Monday to Sunday during their entire stay at the school. Having such an event with a variety of foods brings a smile on their faces. This event is going to be held annually in October."

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