Deaf Education celebrate 50 years in Ghana

Accra, Aug 4, GNA - The Special Education Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has selected eight special schools to undertake Post-JSS technical and vocational programmes for disabled students. This would ensure that equal emphasis is placed on academic and technical/vocational education for the disabled to equip them with skills that would make them productive and employable.

Speaking at the 50th Anniversary celebration of Deaf Education in Accra, dubbed: "50 years of Deaf Education in Ghana, Achievement, Challenges and the Way Forward", Mrs. Angelina Baiden-Amissah, Deputy Minister of Education Science and Sports, said disabled persons had the right to equal and quality educational opportunities with common curriculum as their regular counterparts.

"Persons with disability have the right to be educated and to participate in the normal activities along side their peer groups in regular schools," she said."

She said Communication Technology (ICT) programmes for the disabled should not be over looked and that the government would do everything possible to establish these centres in the special schools. Mrs. Baiden-Amissah said the ministry was working towards the construction of a befitting national assessment centre to commemorate the 50th Anniversary celebration and also to give expression of government support in improving education for persons with disability. She also pledged government support towards the provision of appropriate infrastructure, textbooks, other logistics and pay salaries of teachers and boarding and lodging of students in special schools throughout the country.

Mr. Samuel Asare, President, Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD), called on the government to transform the three secondary and technical schools for the deaf into model secondary schools since deaf education in the country was limited to secondary level. He said this initiative would help produce good students who would enter the universities.

Mr Asare said deaf students were forced to end their education while those who continued had to enrol in the public tertiary institutions where facilities to support them were absent. He said scholarship programmes for the deaf were needed so that the brilliant ones could be assisted to go for higher education in Ghana and outside and called on the government to improve the poor living conditions of schools for the deaf as well as teachers and those who care for the deaf.

Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, Director, GES, said society should show love and acceptance to the disabled and allow them to participate as productive and respected members of society by offering them equal opportunity to develop and demonstrate their skills and talents in diverse ways.

He said no human being was useless and given the right opportunities, care and attention everybody no matter the situation could learn and achieve something worthwhile.

He said the GES was working with the ministry of education to make education accessible to everybody irrespective of his or her condition. Mrs. Susan Kennedy, Director, Special Education Division of the GES, called on stakeholders in the education of the deaf to take stock of their stewardship for the past 50 years and strategize to find lasting solution to some of the challenging situations confronting them.