Africa-Press – Ghana. Accra, Feb.19- Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, Deputy Education Minister, has reiterated the call on parents not to keep children with disabilities away from society.
He said because they had gifts and talents that could be harnessed to the benefit of society. He was speaking at the braille launch at the Akropong School for the Blind.
Reverend Fordjour said disabilities must not be equated to lack of ability and encouraged parents to take advantage of government’s free education policy and send all children with disabilities to school.
He commended the USAID for the continuous support to the education sector. The Deputy Minister said the translation of approved reading materials into braille was towards addressing the challenge of literacy and numeracy.
Ms. Rasheena Reid, USAID Education Director, Ghana, said her outfit was poised in supporting the reading performance of learners, especially, those with disabilities to ensure no child was left behind.
As such, for the past eight years, USAID provided over five million early grade learning materials, trained over 71,000 pre-school to primary three teachers, among others, all towards promoting equity and inclusive education.
She said every child had the right to learn and to attain the highest quality education to meet their needs. “United States Provides Visually Impaired Ghanaian Students with Braille Learning Materials to Support over 300 Students and Teachers at Ghana’s nine Special Education Schools,” she added.
The braille materials, she said, would be distributed to the nine special education schools supporting the Blind across the country. This is part of the Learning T2E Plus programme, which supported the Ministry of Education and the GES to improve early grade reading of learners in Ghana.
The current T2E Plus programme had trained over 20,000 teachers and reached over 750,000 pupils from over 5,000 schools across Ghana, she said. Ms Veronica Dery, Headteacher for the Akropong School for the Blind, who received the books said they would be put into good use to promote effective teaching and learning. She said, “now, teachers will not wait for their colleagues to read to them to make braille out of the lessons…”
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