Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa
Deputy Speaker Tayebwa has asked the Ministry of Education and Sports to table a report on the performance of special needs schools following the delays by the government in honouring an earlier directive issued on the same matter.
On Tuesday (next week), I need a statement in regard to these issues that have been raised regarding the performance of students with disabilities as far as examinations are concerned, said Tayebwa.
His directive followed a concern raised by PWDs national MP Laura Kanushu, who expressed disappointment in the failure of the Government to provide enough funds and specialist teachers to schools with children with disabilities.
She warned that if these issues are not addressed, Uganda will raise a generation that will be a burden to the country, yet if these learners with special needs obtain an education, they will become independent and provide for themselves.
I think as a Government, we have decided that students with disabilities shouldn’t go to school or if they go to school, they should fail. How can we be here and say we are the Parliament of the people when we aren’t concerned about the most vulnerable learners, how can you deny a blind student braille material, how can you deny a deaf student a teacher who can speak that language of the students so that they can be on the same level, said Kanushu
Kanushu also asked the Deputy Speaker to clarify on the essence of the parliamentary directives issued to the Government, citing the failure of the Ministry of Education and Sports to provide a report on the performance of schools with children with disabilities.
When you give directives in this Parliament, is it for show? It was a year ago; other results have come; students are failing, and we are raising a generation that will be a burden in this nation. In the recently released PLE results, schools of children with disabilities have failed again miserably. I didn’t see that report that you asked the Ministry to bring here, and it still goes back to the issue of funding. [at least] 99 per cent of schools for children with disabilities are government aided, there are specialist teachers, there are no materials that speak to the needs of these learners, added Kanushu.
A December 2023 value-for-money audit intended to assess the Government’s progress in providing equitable and affordable access to education services for learners with special needs, highlighted that these children face tremendous challenges, including discrimination, stigma, limited access to inclusive and special schools, insufficient learning materials, and scarcity of teachers with training in special needs education, leading to low enrolment rates, dropouts, and poor performance in national examinations.
Auditor General John Muwanga, in his report, revealed, “The enrolment of learners with special needs in school represented only 1.97 per cent of the total enrolment in primary schools for the year 2023 against the expected target of 16 per cent children of school going age, based on the latest Uganda Demographic and Health Survey figures.”
The report also revealed that the 22 special and unit schools visited during the audit were found to have inadequate infrastructure to accommodate learners with special needs, which has resulted in overcrowding and sharing of classrooms by different classes, thus hindering their academic progress and increasing the risk of dropping out.
Additionally, the report also indicated that the majority of the teachers handling learners with special needs lacked training in Special Needs Education, with auditors revealing that out of the 438 teachers in the schools visited, only 140 had some training in SNE.
The situation was worse for Braille mathematics, with only two qualified teachers in the entire country. In collaboration with relevant stakeholders, lobby for the deployment of essential support staff, such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, sign language interpreters, and social workers, to special schools, units, and inclusive schools, read in part of the report.
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