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Blind Society set to introduce foundation Maths

Aug 20, 2015 News

Although it has over the years proven to be difficult to deliver, the Guyana Society for the Blind is looking to include Mathematics in its curriculum come next month.
For the past few years the Blind Society has been offering classes to prepare blind and visually impaired persons for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination.
Already some eight candidates have registered for the CSEC classes and coordinator of the programme, Ganesh Singh, is optimistic that more will come on board. The past two sittings of CSEC each saw a total of 10 candidates participating in the CSEC classes.
Among the subjects currently being offered by the Blind Society are: English, Social Studies, Principles of Business, Office Administration and Human and Social Biology. However one candidate also wrote Caribbean History at the 2015 sitting.
Singh, during an interview with this publication, pointed out that because of the visual limitations of students, together with limited resources, Mathematics has not been a subject that students could have opted for at CSEC.
“It is difficult to deliver the Mathematics syllabus to them presently, because of the visual challenge, but hopefully we can eventually do it in the near future,” said an optimistic Singh.
According to him, “we know that it is possible,” even as he disclosed his findings that Mathematics is already offered to visually impaired/blind students in some Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) territories using Braille.
Braille is a system of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or who have low vision.
“We are now trying to teach Braille here and we are hoping that maybe, this will be one of the ways we can try to implement the Mathematics curriculum…” Singh revealed.
He hopes to solicit support from the Ministry of Education to realize this goal.
However, the introduction of Mathematics this year will be at a foundation level, according to Singh. During a press conference, on Tuesday, he disclosed that Mathematics has been one of the areas that the Society has long been hoping to include.
“I have been having some very brief informal meetings with a gentleman, Mr Neil Bacchus, who has promised to work with our students at the foundation level, so that they can have that foundation, and then we will try to work from there using excel,” Singh told media operatives.
Stressing the need for support for the delivery of Mathematics was Guillian Layne.
Layne, who is visually impaired, has been a teacher for more than 20 years, but wrote five subjects at CSEC this year through the Blind Society. With three grade ones, one grade two and one grade three passes, she was named the second top performing candidate produced by the Blind Society. Alwyn Adams with three grade ones and two grade two passes was the top performing candidate.
However, in order for an average student to matriculate, he or she requires at least five subjects including Mathematics and English.
But according to Layne, “really and truly Maths, for persons who are visually impaired and blind, it is a challenge. There’s no if or but or maybe about it; it is a challenge”.
She explained that “we can’t see where to put the numbers in order that they should be, and we don’t know where to put the decimal points and the different signs and so forth.”
As such, she stressed the need for the Ministry of Education to make writing of Mathematics more accessible for people with disabilities in general.
“They are talking about inclusive education, but still they are not catering for persons like us,” Layne stressed.
She went on to point out that often people with disabilities do not pursue success because of limited support.
“We are human beings like everybody else and when people say certain things to you it tends to lower your self-esteem. For me, I had to get lots of encouragement and motivation to actually do my subjects, and I am not going to give up.”

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