Govtt to come with a budget for special schools

Wa, Dec 06, GNA - Miss Elizabeth Ohene, the Minister of State in-charge of Tertiary Education, has given the assurance that the government has prioritised special education and would soon come out with a special and comprehensive budget that would take care of all the 28 special schools in the country.

She said this when she visited the Wa School for the Blind and Wa School for the Deaf as part of her one-day visit to the Upper West Region.

Ms Ohene also visited the old and new premises of Wa Polytechnic and the Wa campus of University for Development Studies and inspected some of the completed buildings and some of the on-going projects of the institutions.

She said the government had started integrating children with disabilities into public schools on pilot basis and based on the outcome, more of such integration programmes would be carried out to erase the perceived discrimination.

Mrs Susan Kennedy, the Director of Special Education, said in order to reduce the high rate of blindness in society it would become mandatory for parents to send their children for thorough check-ups before they are enrolled in primary school. At the School for the Blind, they appealed for the re-introduction of responsibility allowance, the transcription of textbooks into brail and should be given a fair share of HIPC funds to develop their school infrastructure.

The School for the Deaf on the other hand appealed for tools and equipment to make use of the vocational centre, expand infrastructure and to renovate the structures.