According to the research the unfavourable school structures and unfriendly environment were impediments that denied disabled children access to primary education.
Existence of this unpleasant situation in basic schools, Mrs. Nicholina Agbobada, the Direct Assistance Project Officer of the Foundation, said impeded the nation’s efforts towards the attainment of the goal two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Mrs. Agbobada revealed the research findings at this year’s “We ring the bell campaign” organised by the Foundation at the Handmaid Preparatory and Junior High School at Nsoatre in the Sunyani West District of the Brong-Ahafo Region.
The campaign is an annual worldwide campaign held on March 10, and was meant to draw attention to the right to education of school children with disabilities.
It is a Dutch Liliane Foundation initiative in partnership with the Samuel Wellington Foundation in Ghana.
Mrs. Agbobada was unhappy that school enrolment of people with disabilities in the country continued to decline because successive governments paid little attention to the situation.
She observed with regret that many primary schools lacked special teachers to attend to disabled children, a situation which was affecting academic performance of the special pupils and students.
Mrs. Agbobada emphasised that since education was a fundamental right of every child, policy makers must ensure that schools become more accessible to children with disabilities.
This, she said would not only sustain the interest of the disabled children to stay in schools but also motivate them to learn hard and achieve high academic laurels.
The school children held placards with inscriptions such as “nothing about us without us”, “education is a right for us too” and “we need inclusion not integration” and made unremitting noise at the school to mark the campaign
source||GNA
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