Promoting education for the disabled

“We are conducting an exercise to identify children and although we have just started, we already have 312 disabled children. And these will be the first group to be served,” says Crescence Uwarurema.Uwarurema is from Kamonyi district. She has just completed a six months training programme, where she acquired skills that she hopes, will enable her fulfill her lifelong dream of assisting disabled children.She is one of the 40 people who recently graduated with special skills that will see them help to promote inclusive education that seeks to cater for the needs of the disabled, especially the deaf and blind.These 40 are part of a pilot project that is championed by Handicap International. They received their training from Kigali Institute of Education.These were the first students to graduate with such skills and according to Handicap International, the project that started in four districts will be extended to others.Currently the focus is still on the districts of Kamonyi, Muhanga, Rustiro and Gasabo.The graduates were trained for six months in various disciplines including the medium of instruction or sign language and free interaction to create a favorable learning environment for children with various disabilities.Uwarurema points out that although the project has increased on the number of people with basic skills to teach children with different disabilities, more teachers are required.“In our district, we have only 43 teachers but compared to the expected number of students, this number is too small,” she notes.According to her, the number is expected to rise to more than 600 children, considering the remaining area the identification exercise is yet to cover.Most of the graduates, say that a lot needs to be done in promoting inclusive or special needs education based on the number of disabled children already identified to benefit. Howeever despite the enthusiasm, challenges remain. Another graduate, Johnson Mugabo, says that they face a challenge of accessing teaching materials.“Just like other children or students in other schools, when there are no teaching materials, it is so hard to make the learners understand and for the disabled, it is even worse,” Mugabo says.The programme manager at Handicap-International, Silas Ngayaboshya, tells me that the project is designed to empower or develop education for all children including the disabled.“We have initiated and indeed we want the government to own this project because we are training those who will train others, e we can not afford training disabled children all over the country.” He points out that it is very important to mainstream inclusive education for the disabled or the curriculum should cater for these children.“The government has been committed to providing education to all children, but a lot more needs to be done to do away with barriers limiting disabled children from accessing quality education,” says Gallican Mugabonake, who is in charge of capacity building at Handicap International.The Minister of Education Dr Vincent Biruta, says that inclusive education will be made possible given measures government is putting in place to ensure that disabled children are not denied a chance at having an education.“Based on the need, we are aware that currently, people with the capacity to teach disabled children are not enough,” Biruta says.During the graduation ceremony, the Minister commended Handicap International for coming up with the project saying it compliments government’s education programmes.