CPCE must fully embrace inclusive education – Ed Caesar

Dec 31, 2014 News

Even as the education sector basks in the glory of attaining universal primary education and nears the ambitious goal of universal secondary education, there yet remains a crucial need for particular emphasis to be directed to those children within the system who suffer from various forms of disabilities.

Former Chief Education Officer,
Ed Caesar

This notion was recently amplified by former Chief Education Officer, Ed Caesar, when he addressed a gathering of teachers who graduated from the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE).
And according to him, the tactic of catering to the needs of children with disabilities is certainly not one that Guyana is focusing on in isolation. He disclosed that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), for instance, has been one of the organisations of the world, with a global reach, that has been paying keen attention to children with disabilities.
In fact, he divulged that in 2013 alone, UNICEF was able to promote the rights and wellbeing of millions of children living with disabilities who are among the most likely to be excluded from schools and other opportunities.
As such, he spoke of the need for CPCE to fully embrace the notion of inclusive education by ensuring that teachers and lecturers alike acquire, at least, the minimum competencies to function in an inclusive education environment.
Although inclusive education is deemed an approach to educate students with different learning abilities, here in Guyana the term speaks mostly to including children with special needs in the mainstream classrooms.
But according to Caesar, embracing inclusive education has not been a notion that is often readily accepted.
He recalled being offered the privilege of delivering the feature address at a Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) Biennial Congress, where he was able to deliberate extensively on the subject of inclusive education. His utterances there would allow him to subsequently be included on a televised programme to again speak on the issue.
Caesar, however, recounted that at least two callers to the very programme were adamant that they did not want their children to be schooled with children with disabilities.
“How selfish can we get?” questioned Caesar as he intimated that many children are subjected to situations that are not dissimilar.
He recounted the situation of a young boy who entered the nursery level school, but was hardly able to say a word.
“The teachers worked with him; toiletry was learnt at that nursery school and when that young boy got into trouble he began to call the names of at least two teachers…he developed and he began doing things on his own,” Caesar recalled. However, this did not mean the end of discrimination for this young boy as, according to Caesar, graduating from nursery level did not mean he was easily accepted into a primary school as a pupil. This state of affairs was described as “another sad aspect” of the society’s view of the disability situation.
A few years ago, Caesar was at the forefront of a small survey to ascertain what parents expected of the school system. And the findings revealed that parents wanted the school to prepare their children to live and work comfortably in a peaceful society. However, most importantly, he disclosed that parents wanted their children to acquire many subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.
Caesar said that from all indications “this is also an expectation of our Ministry of Education, the leading stakeholder.”
But according to him, a situation that often obtains is that “we celebrate obvious successes, but fail to focus on basic transition developments”. Addressing this, he noted, would require that CPCE’s focus on a pedagogical transformational phase must therefore prepare teachers to identify weaknesses in their charges, account for them, correct them and celebrate development, a situation that is expected to cater for inclusive education.