Africa-Press – Botswana. Some stakeholders in Maun have vowed to support the newly constructed Maun Centre for Special Education which will cater for children with severe intellectual and multiple disabilities.
They said the Disana ward facility was a welcome development as it would help children with disabilities to overcome the barriers they had been experiencing by affording them an opportunity to acquire education.
They pledged support during a meeting addressed by the Department of Education to apprise them on the project status, preparations for the opening of the new facility, enrolment, learning programmes and roles of various stakeholders.
It was disclosed that the P183 million project is almost complete and expected to be handed over to the ministry of education next month.
Currently, recruitment of manpower, procurement of furniture as well as development of functional curriculum framework and learning programmes were said to be ongoing.
The centre is expected to open towards the end of the year, or early 2024.
A physiotherapist at Doctors Inn Health Centre, Ms Tebogo Nhlatho expressed gratitude that government saw it fit to build such a centre in Maun, saying many children were being excluded from school because of their disabilities while, on the other hand, society had stigmatised them.
She expressed hope that parents would be motivated to bring their children to the centre so that they got an opportunity to be empowered through education. She also appreciated that alongside teachers with the right qualifications, the ministry would also place experts in different fields, and that the centre would have a fully-fledged diagnostic team who would ensure learners were assessed on time.
“Children with special needs are unique and require teachers who can go an extra mile to make them feel worthy,” she noted.
Moremi Primary School head, Ms Ngonda Setlhare, whose school has a special education unit, appreciated that the centre would not only benefit its own learners, but also others from different schools to utilise its specialised resources. Ms Setlhare welcomed the counselling service that would be offered to caregivers of children with disabilities.
Chief Education Officer (Special Education), Ms Kebabonye Maripe explained that the centre would give priority to children who had never benefited from structured stimulation programmes before, and that its target population was children aged 4-18 years with severe intellectual and multiple disabilities across the country.
She said the centre would enrol 100 learners, 64 of whom would be boarding while 36 would be day scholars.
“We want to maintain a small teacher-learner ratio because we are talking of severe disabilities. We cannot go beyond 10 learners per class,” she said. She explained that the centre would have two core teams, focusing on education and rehabilitation.
She further disclosed that the facility had a state of the art mini-stadium, which aimed to provide physical education and adaptive sporting. Ms Maripe observed that recreation and leisure were key components of rehabilitation.
She appealed to the community to change their attitudes to people with disabilities and ensure that children benefitted from the facility, adding that they should also come on board and ensure that the initiative did not turn into a discriminating and stigmatising place as that would kill the spirit of inclusion for all.
Ms Maripe noted that each region in the country would be allocated a quota to ensure equal access, explaining that adverts for admission would be widely publicised.
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