By Seraphine Nyuiemedi
The Ho Municipal Special Needs Education Coordinator, Michael Tsikudo has appealed to the Ghana Education Service and other relevant authorities to provide his unit with motorbikes to aid movement. He said their mandate is to go round the schools to identify children with Disabilities, sensitise teachers and other stakeholders on how to handle them as well as provide teaching and learning strategies. He stressed on the need to provide means of transportation for all resource persons to enable them to work effectively. Mr. Tsikudo was speaking in an interview with GBC News at a stakeholder consultative session organised by the New Horizon Foundation of the Blind (NHFB) at Ho in the Volta Region.
The Stakeholder’s Consultative Session which looked at implementing inclusive Education for learners with visual impairment in Public Schools is part of activities of the NHFB’s collaborative partnership project with the Deutsches Blindenhilswerk (DBHW) aimed at advocating full inclusion of learners with visual impairment in all teaching and learning institutions across the country.
It was also to solicit views and input from the stakeholders on how best to support Persons with visual impairment.
The Ho Municipal Special Needs Education Coordinator, Michael Tsikudo said, though the Ghana Education Service is responsible for the provision of its resources, it has not been forthcoming. He urged the GES to honour their request by providing the needed resources to aid its work.
“We do workshop for the teachers as to how to handle these children in the classrooms, we workshop other stakeholders like the Communities, the churches, any other organization that has something to do with special needs education”.
“We are always cash-strapped and you know our work demands that we move from school to school and anytime we want to move from school to school, it means that we should have transportation means here we are we don’t have those transportation means other than taking vehicles for instance, taxi, motorbikes on a hiring basis, so we thinking that if we can have motorbikes for all the resource persons just as the circuit supervisors also have that will help us a lot to improve upon our work”.
Programs Coordinator for the New Horizon Foundation of the Blind, Richard Ametefe highlighted some achievements of the group.
“About four of our children that we identified from day one that we took through brain literacy, computer literacy and other forms of rehabilitation services have been able to make it in life”.
Currently we have one of them who has completed Akropong College of Education and he has taught at the mainstream school and then decided to go for further studies at the University of Education Winneba, he has completed and he is awaiting his posting”.
“The second guy that we identified and supported is also at College of Education now that is followed by Roland, Roland has also completed Adidome Senior High school. we were able to put up educational centre for the blind and low vision, it’s located at Ho Kpodzi, it’s accommodation facility to train, rehabilitate and ensure that these children when identified are given the necessary skills that will enable them to function in the mainstream schools”.
New Horizon Foundation of the Blind is an advocacy group for the right of persons with visual impairment.
