The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ablekuma West, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, has called on stakeholders in the educational sector to pay attention to schoolchildren with special needs.
According to her, the authorities must provide such children with the basic necessities and facilities to give them the required skills and knowledge to live independent lives.
She indicated that children with special needs relished the prospects of attaining higher education to enable them to contribute their quota to the development of the country, instead of begging for alms and becoming a burden on the citizenry.
Mrs Ekuful made these observations when she addressed journalists after a working visit to the Dansoman Special School in Accra.
The situation
The school houses about 53 children and four teachers.
The Daily Graphic observed that the pupils urinate in the classrooms and defecate at the backyard and then cover the excreta with sand due to the absence of toilet facilities in the school.
New structure
Reports gathered by the Daily Graphic at the school indicated that even though the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, had ensured the completion of a new classroom block to accommodate the children, the children were yet to be relocated to the new building.
Reacting to the situation, the MP said: “We came here in October last year, made noise about this situation and the mayor assured us that by November ending the children would be in the new structure. We’re now in March ending and they are still here.
“Currently, the teachers are doing their best but they’re overwhelmed with handling these helpless children of different ages and sexes and different levels of disability in one classroom.”
She, therefore, called on the MCE to, as a matter of urgency, help relocate the children to the new structure, since they regularly faced the possibility of contracting communicable diseases due to the nature of environment.
Other perspectives
In an interview, the MP for Tano North, Mrs Freda Prempeh, who was part of the delegation that visited the school, said the situation at the school was appalling, as the teachers had to endure serious challenges in catering for the children.
She appealed to the Ministry of Education to implement an awards scheme that would honour teachers in that sector, adding that winners should be given special incentives to encourage them to continue with their kind gesture.
