Teachers urged to give children equal opportunity to unearth potential
The acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Mr Charles Aheto-Tsegah, has urged teachers to offer equal opportunity to all children to enable them to unearth their potential.
Advertisement
He said it was important for teachers to assess children in their various capacities, with particular attention to those who are slow learners, adding that “if we treat them differently, they will respond appropriately.”
The acting Director-General said this when he presented teaching and learning materials to the Ghana National Special Basic School in Cape Coast at the weekend.
The items included four Close Circuit Televisions (CCTVs), two Pubby magnifiers, 13 handheld magnifiers and a telescope.
The donation formed part of a two-year programme initiated and supported by African Perkins International and USAID to ensure access to quality education and literacy of people with disabilities.
Quality education for all children
Mr Aheto-Tsegah warned that the government’s policy of ensuring quality education for all children of school age would be a mirage if the needs of children in institutions for persons with disabilities were not addressed properly.
“We will be failing as a nation if we provide the needs of regular educational institutions and ignore the special schools”, he said.
He underscored the need for the teachers to develop interest in children in every aspect of the child’s education, with particular interest in reading and writing, adding: “All are very important, but before we become what we want to be, we must know how to read.”
On inclusive education, the acting Director-General urged the heads of the various schools to build capacity in the application of the equipment and ensure that they were used for the optimum benefit of the children.
The Central Regional Director of Education, Mr Joseph Kor, urged children with disability not to allow their plight to deter them from achieving their goals.
Need for collaboration
He stressed the need for collaboration between the schools and stakeholders in ensuring quality education, stressing: “Let’s serve them and know them; let’s show them love, they are not persona non grata.”
The Cape Coast Metropolitan Director of Education, Ms Florence Nkoom, said the physically challenged could be useful in society, if their needs were met.
She urged parents to pay regular visits to their children in special schools and go for them when the schools were on vacation.
The Regional Co-ordinator, African Perkins International, Ms Angela Adwoa Asare Affran, announced that her organisation had acquired funds to establish a unit for the training of teachers for the deaf and blind at the Cape Coast School for the Deaf and Blind.
