Education Minister
The dreams of over 500 persons with disability (PWDs) who completed last year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and are expected to enter the various Community Day Senior High Schools (SHS) being built across the country by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been crushed, as they cannot attend the school.
This is because the buildings of the community day schools do not have the required facilities such as ramps and elevators among others, which would enable the PWDs to move about smoothly around the premises.
This was contained in an audit report by the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD), under the headline; “Accessibility Audit on Community Day Senior High Schools Being Built across the Country.”
The report looked at two of the completed community day schools at Kwaobaah Nyanoa in the Eastern Region and Otuam in the Central Region.
Speaking in an interview with the paper, Isaac Tugguun, GFD’s Focal Person, said: “PWDs will not be able to access the schools during the rainy season. The schools are three-storey blocks in a form of the letter E, with libraries located on third floors, assembly halls on second floors.”
“They [the buildings] have neither ramps nor elevators to enable students and employees with disability access the libraries, the assembly hall, and the classrooms on the second and third floors,” he explained.
According to him, the entrances to the classrooms and washrooms are also narrow, with the high likelihood to impede independent entry and exit by students and employees using wheelchairs and crutches, as well as those with visual impairment.
Mr. Tuggun continued that both schools did not satisfy the requirements of the inclusive education policy rolled out by the government in 2015.
The report said students and employees or visitors using wheelchairs to get on the verandah required collective man power, noting that “besides the narrow entrances to the classrooms, the stairs at the entrance of each classroom would make entry and exit very challenging to students with disabilities.
“To access the ICT Center, one has to descend a flight of staircases from two approaches. This poses very serious challenges to the visually impaired. PWDs cannot access the computer lab.
“Also students and workers or visitors with physical disability cannot move from one block to the other, because they have to pass in front of the ICT Center, which means descending and climbing a flight of staircases. The washrooms were not accessible.
“The school is located on a hill, and, therefore, very difficult to be reached by students and workers with disability.
“Worse still, the school is located six kilometres away from Otuam town, and about seven kilometers from the other nearest towns. This is a big challenge to PWDs trying to access education or work in the school.”
Ghana signed the UNCRPD in 2007, and ratified it and the optional protocol in 2012, making it part of the body laws in the country.
It would be recalled that the government promised to construct 200 community senior high schools and engage over 900 teachers across the country to improve access to secondary education.
It later announced that about GHC12.2 million had been released to the Education Ministry to pay the first term fees of students for the 2015/2016 academic year.
“Finance has given clearance to employ over 9,000 new teachers for the community day schools, because, as we open them, we must equip them with teachers, and so that is being done. I think that the working environment in the community day schools is very good,” President Mahama told the media in October last year.
