zulu.1948.disabled
No help, no hope
No facilities, no special teaching aids and an inadequate subsidy system – these are just some of the results of the government’s policy as regards SA’s special needs children… Story and pictures by Brenda Nkuna
AS A SINGLE parent with a mentally and physically disabled daughter, 58-year-old Nosizwe Ziwele knows just how difficult it is raise a disabled child in a township. Her daughter was born with a deformed arm and leg and is unable to walk, feed or wash herself. She’s confined to a two-room shack in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha, where there’s no support or infrastructure to assist her.
“Nothing fits for her in the townships,” says Ziwele of her daughter, Xolelwa.
Ziwele says her daughter couldn’t attend a special school for any length of time while growing up because the costs were prohibitive.
Sadly, little has changed…
In 2001, a government White Paper, on which current special needs education policy is based, estimated there could be as many as 260 000 disabled children countrywide who don’t have access to education.
The White Paper, Special Needs Education: Building An Inclusive Education And Training System, outlined a policy aimed at increasing access to education.
A number of schools countrywide would be designated “full-service schools” and cater to learners with mild problems, while ordinary schools would accommodate those who require lower levels of support.
Implementation of the policy laid out in the White Paper began in March 2007. Originally 30 institutions were to become full-service schools, but “funding issues” have seen this number reduced to 12 countrywide, according to Moses Simelane, chief education specialist in the National Education Department.
But critics feel this just isn’t good enough and the policy has been especially problematic for the 397 special schools countrywide.
South African Human Rights Commission disability co-ordinator Simmi Pillay points to non-delivery of special facilities and aids. There’s also been no attempt to increase the number of specially trained teachers in the field.
As a result, disabled children aren’t being integrated into mainstream society and invariably end up back at home.
Pillay believes “enormous work” has to be done and that better co-ordination is needed between the national education department, their provincial counterparts and organisations representing the disabled.
“There needs to be a degree of consistency in different provinces as well as a level of urgency in addressing the matter,” she says.
Disabled Children’s Action Group (DICAG) national co-ordinator Sandra Ambrose agrees the policy is problematic.
It’s also important to include all children as those who do not attend school are often subject to abuse at home, she notes.
Inadequate transport’s another issue and disabled learners struggle getting to and from school.
Dave Balt, president of the National Professional Teachers Organisation Of South Africa (Naptosa), says they raised concerns in January over lack of trained teachers for disabled children, appropriate class sizes and available resources, but were still waiting for a response.
Nosipho Franse, principal of Tembaletu Special School in Gugulethu, Cape Town, says the school currently has 185 learners, of which 166 were subsidised.
That seems a lot, but the school struggles to raise the balance of the money needed and is unable to pay maintenance staff or supply food and adequate transportation for its learners.
She says 80% of parents whose children are at the school are unemployed and can therefore make only limited financial contributions.
For the policy to succeed Franse says there have to be trained teachers and therapists at schools who can deal with disabled children.
Education department spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele denies the policy excludes children and says the problem lies with children who’re not brought to schools by their parents.
He says provincial education departments support children with disabilities with a per learner allocation that was several times higher than that for learners at mainstream schools, but the actual allocation varied depending on the disability.
He said over time the education department would develop more “full-service schools” so that disabled children would feel more comfortable attending a neighbourhood school rather than going to a distant special school. [e]
West Cape News
BONA April 2008
TRUE LIFE
80%
of parents whose children are at the school are unemployed and can make only limited financial contributions
Disabled3.jpg:
Nosizwe Ziwele plays with her disabled daughter Xolelwa outside her two-roomed shack in Khayelitsha. Ziwele says she struggled to place her daughter in a special school while she was growing up.
PANELHED
PANELCOPY
