DR RADICA MAHASE

It’s an exciting day today for most of our nation’s children, as they return to school after the July/August vacation! It is a happy day for those who are looking forward to seeing their friends again and maybe a day marked with anxiety for parents who are sending their children to schools for the first time or to new schools. No matter what the emotions, they are lucky to have been accepted into a school, fortunate to have a school to go to.

You see, there is a small part of our population of children who have been denied an education and continue to be denied an education. This group comprises some children diagnosed with autism as well as some children with physical disabilities and some with other types of special needs. In the absence of general data for our country, the data from children registered at Rahul’s Clubhouse, an autism centre located in Marabella, indicates that out of 75 registered members, 60 per cent of all registered members do not have a school to go to this morning. Given that the right to an education is one of the rights of the child, why are these children not in school and furthermore, what is being done to change their situation?

First, there are those who were not accepted into a public school – government or denominational. One frustrated parents stated, “I filled out the application forms for four different schools earlier this year. I submitted all relevant documents and I waited like all the other parents. When schools started calling up parents from April/ May I prayed that I would get a phone call too. By June, when none of the schools called me, I started following up with them. My child wasn’t accepted into any of the four schools. It was always something – they don’t have any teachers trained to teach students with special needs; they don’t have any space remaining. One school told me that my son will need an aide and they don’t know how long it will be before one was allocated so they couldn’t take him. My son has to remain in pre-school for another year and we have to do this applying thing all over again next year because I cannot afford to send him to a private school.”

[caption id="attachment_1033558" align="alignnone" width="934"] Every child has the ability to learn and should not be denied an education. - Courtesy Rahul's Clubhouse[/caption]

Then there are those students who were attending schools but had to withdraw for different reasons. Some withdrew because they were overwhelmed or lost in the system. They simply could not keep up with a system based on a standardised curriculum and evaluation, a system that does not cater to differential learners or students with exceptionalities. As one parent stated, “My child is excellent in maths but had difficulties reading and writing. His level of maths was way past his classmates but because he did not write good, the school kept him back for two years. Then he became the oldest and tallest student in his class and the others started bullying him. It became really bad, he got depressed and woul