‘Relocate Dansoman Special School’

Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West, Ursula Owusu, has threatened to transport over 60 children with disabilities to the Minister of Education and the Accra Mayor’s offices on Monday, March 31 if no action was taken to relocate them.

The children from the Dansoman Special School are cramped into one deplorable classroom, where they sometimes soil themselves, due to the lack of toilet and urinal facilities in the school.

The Lawmaker has also called on the Ministry of Education to move swiftly to save the children, who are suffering from varied levels and degrees of disabilities from any imminent danger.

In a media interview after visiting the Dansoman Special School, Mrs Owusu said it was depressing seeing children with such deformities without running water, toilet and urinal facilities, compelling some to defecate openly in the classrooms.

She noted that when the room got warm during the afternoons the children become agitated and knock their heads together while others fall, sustaining injuries. According to her, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) pledged in October 2013 to relocate the children from the current classroom to a new structure, but had failed to do so.

Mrs Owusu said it was intriguing that the new structure had been completed and locked up, whilst the children were still “packed up’” in the current classroom with “high-hilled” stair case and potholes.

She mentioned that several attempts to get city authorities and the Ghana Education Service to liberate the children from their current state of condition had proved futile.

The lawmaker has therefore, threatened to transport the children to the offices of the Ministry of Education and the AMA on Monday to present a petition. The children’s disabilities range from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, blindness and deafness.

Others suffer learning disabilities, medical disabilities, physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and speech and language disabilities.

A Media Caucus on Disability team, which visited the school in October 2013 revealed that the children urinate right in front of the classroom and the canteen, which emanates a foul stench and house flies.

The children had been cramped into a single classroom with high-steeped slopping stair cases with holes, making it disability unfriendly.

The school lacks potable water, lighting system, toilet facilities, appropriate desks and specially trained teachers, as well as teaching and learning resources.