Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government has been asked to put in place a workable mechanism that will identify children with disabilities so that they can be enrolled in schools and receive their basic rights just like others.
They said that would help deal with individuals, especially some parents and guardians who had been hiding children living with disabilities at home due to misconceptions.
The call was made at Chamwino in Dodoma and Ilongero in Singida District Council where AFNET, MEDO and Action- Aid brought together education stakeholders to discuss a research report conducted in January last year on gender equality education and needs for 20 earmarked schools in the project area.
Mr Jacob Kateri, who conducted research, noted in his report that apart from student dropout, lack of teachers and a shortage of latrines in selected schools, low enrolment of students with disabilities featured highly among the major challenges identified.
He noted that while national statistics indicated that 0.5 per cent of children with disabilities were enrolled in schools in 2018, just the same as Singida District Council did, in Chamwino District enrolment was 0.34 per cent only, which was far below the national average.
He further noted that out of every 10 schools involved in the research in Singida and Chamwino, five had children with disabilities despite facing the challenge of poor learning and teaching infrastructure.
Discussing the issue, stakeholders said the main reason why some parents did not enrol their children in schools there was a misleading belief that having such a child was a curse in the family, embarrassment to the surrounding community and, therefore, did not deserve to be taken outside to do any development activity.
They listed other factors as poor learning and teaching infrastructure, absence of qualified teachers for special education, latrines and long distances from home to school.
They concluded that the only way was for the government to put in place effective procedures to identify children with disabilities from the grassroots and ensure they were enrolled in special schools with a friendly environment according to their needs so that they could study comfortably like others.
Chamwino District Council, Statistics and Logistics Officer Nyemo Masimba said to be successful, the move must go hand in hand with every stakeholder fulfilling his/her responsibility emphasising free education did not mean the government had to provide everything.
The government is implementing an inclusive education policy (IEP) which requires children with special needs and disabilities to study together with other children without any discrimination.
