A CHILD with a special need uses learning tools.
CHATTING EDUCATION with KENNETH CHIMESE
?WHERE children are privileged to attend a few of these high profile private schools, where parents and students are accorded a right to have a say in the goings on at the school,? these cries from women who have been talking to Chatting Education may sound strange. But the grieving women with children in public schools are pointing out how some of our schools are devoid of care for the needs and welfare of the children. Lately, this column has been rushed off its feet by complaints from mothers who have been following Chatting Education stories.
The mothers bring out two issues: Schools are failing to adequately cater for their children. Secondly, there is no-one to complain to ? or there is simply no-one to take action and remedy matters.Thewomen have lost hope that there is anyone at the Ministry of Education who cares about the suffering of their children. The voices of crying mothers are so loud that Chatting Education will relay to the public and authorities themothers? anguish, and, hopefully, just hopefully, move someone to action.Some of the women are not only grieving, they are in fact upset.
Through an e-mail, Beauty Mulenga of Chililabombwe, sounding close to being infuriated,said, ?We expect every Zambian to know their rights. Sensitisation is paramountso that each and every individual knows where to go when he or she is abused.? This was in reference to the article, ?Students deserve their right to dignity?. Ms Mulenga challenges parents to realise they have a role to play by educating children on their rights.
She laments with a tone of sadness, ?Our children who are attending government schools are in for it. You can imagine the first week of opening schools, our children avoid going to school because they do nothing the whole week except manual work. The following week it is teachers? meetings and no classes during the second week as well. ?no school reports have been done for the children. No Open Day (to discuss the progress of the child) since January!? She appeals to the Ministry of Education ?? to do something to stop the rot ? the ill-treatment of children by schools.?
A UNDP gender programmes officer in Lusaka, who herself was once a teacher, stated in no uncertain terms, via SMS: ?There is gross violation of child/human rights taking place in most of these schools all in the name of discipline.? She was categorical enough to add, ?Catholic schools are worse because they know they are on high demand. Catholic schools feel they can get away with it because they are not answerable to government authorities.?
Ms CandyMorrell, an ardent reader of Chatting Education,speaks of how the article on dignity of students in education evoked revolting memories of one experience she had whilst attending a school in Lusaka. She recollects being punished to ?clean out? the disused swimming pool at the school. The pool was infested with live frogs. You can imagine the eerie feeling. Her crime? Having reported late for school on the fateful day.The school felt it was so huge a transgression befitting such odious punishment.
A reader with affinity to Chatting Education who worked at a convent school recalls how a nun at the school slapped a girl so hard that to this day, she recalls the incident with fright. And a head teacher at a Chingola school once punished a class to ?uproot? a line of water pipes at the school so that new pipes could be laid. Punishment for making noise.The boys and girls did not know where the pipes lay in the ground. The ground was hard, and the pupils had no suitable tools with which to do the job.
The lamentations of a mum with a child enrolled at a special needs school, tell of very distressing conditions at the school. The woman, on the phone, sounded like she was at wits? end. She has resigned to the fact that she and her child will continue hurting for eternity. She had just finished reading the article, ?the heavy burden of illiteracy?, and decided to call Chatting Education ? if only to talk to someone about the plight of the children at the school.
The mother reeled off and lamented at the lack of care and poor attitude towards the children by the staff at the school. Staff numbers at the school are very low. The adult-pupil ratio is as bad as 1 to 15. Handling and trying to teach 15 children with intellectual difficulties becomes unenviable. The apparent lack of commitment and adherence to professional ethics by the staff leaves a mother close to tears.
She observes there is no differentiation in the teaching approach employed by the teachers. It is often one teaching strategy and one task for all the children.Things are so bad that one classroom is used simultaneously by two grades, with teachers sharing the same chalk board at a time! When a child gets tired, as can often be expected, the child will most likely sleep on the floor. There aren?t proper mattresses on which the children, who are of different special conditions, can sleep.
Where a child?s disability requires the use of special furniture, parents have to provide this. As though the parents? burden of having a child with learning disability is not hard enough, the school charges K300,000 school fees, asks the children to donate cocoa, milk, sugar, washing detergent and other groceries. Obviously you will pardon the parent who suggests that staff at the school benefit from this arrangement. Imagine a poor, disabled child being made to struggle to meet the requirements of this special school. And this is a government-run school.
The school has one little bus which is used by the children. On school trips and as it helps the children get to school and back home, the 16-seater bus is always overloaded. Cases have been recorded where a child who had messed themselves up in their pants was put on the bus together with the other children to be attended to at home!
Children at this school are weighed down by their intellectual inabilities. They, thus, require special care and therapy as they receive special education. These children are amongst the most vulnerable in any society. Children with special educational needs should be specially provided for to allow them to develop and realise their own full potential just like any other children who have no learning handicaps. Ironically, the school motto reads, ?self-sufficiency through special education provision.?
An attempt by Chatting Education to visit the school to verify the cries of the mother drew a blank. As though symbolic of how rough things are at the school, the road leading to it is in bad state. The grounds at the school are dry.? There is very little outside playing equipment.The head teacher of the school, showing marked guardedness, refused to grant the columnist an interview though she conceded that the school faces numerous problems.
All these cries can point at a few things.Education Standards Officers are there in theory. The ministry is bureaucratic; the officers are too traditional in their ideas.The cries are a sad testament of the unprofessional conduct of school head teachers who have abrogated their responsibilities. Teachers are not taking motherly care of the kids. Schools have caused several mothers to cry, and bred numerous silently weeping children.
Comments to:kenneth_chimese@aol.com, 0966902506, 0955 491305
Source: http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=15076
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