Disability Education
Disability Education is special learning for people with impairments. Christabel was enrolled at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Special Education School in 1996,after undergoing some assessment. The disability education has prescribed hours in special class and there is time reserved for physiotherapy as part of the learning. Emphasis is on one to one relationship between the teacher and the pupil. Initially, the school had three learning levels for children with disabilities. These levels were, from one to three with one being the lowest. The pupils were fitted into a specific level based on the assessment by the school. Christabel started at level 1 and managed to go through all the three levels. At this school I was elected as chairman of the Parents Teachers Association and I was in the position for four years (two terms). During my tenure of office we set objectives and we achieved most of them. The projects which were completed included purchase of two mini buses for the children with disabilities, construction of a gymnasium and a classroom bock. In 2003 the government changed from the three level system for children with disabilities to the conventional system of grade 1 to 12. Christabel was placed in Grade 4 in 2004. Christabel told us that they were learning the same things which were in level 3, and she became bored. This problem was compounded by the problem of shifting her for the morning session to 13 to 17 hours the change was not suitable to us, so we voted with our feet and went to a community special education school. This school was run by the parents and it was very small compared to the UTH Special School. The UTH school had an enrolment of about 70 pupils whereas this school had about 15 pupils. As parents we did not make an assessment of the capacity of the school by the time we took Christabel to the school. At that time all we needed was a change of school. The school had a good and friendly environment and very soon, we established rapport with the management. My wife and I joined the Parents Teachers Association and participated in fund raising activities of the school. After two years we saw that Christabel was not progressing and realized that the school had inadequate educational equipment and staff. We reviewed our position and with the consent of Christabel we decided to take her back to UTH special school. Admittance to the school was not automatic, the school carried out an assessment on Christabel and the results showed that she had not progress. She was placed in grade 5 once more and she progressed to grade 7 in 2008. However, the school and we as parents were not ready that she could sit for the examinations. As parents we have noticed that Christabel has fear of failure and we did not want to push her to sit for the examination. We have decided that she will sit for the examinations in 2009. When she passes grade 7 she will be placed in grade 8 in a boarding school for children with disabilities. This is a short story about disability education.
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