Inclusion of special needs children...Limited training, resources undermine delivery of special education

Inclusion of special needs children…Limited training, resources undermine delivery of special education – GTU President

May 11, 2017 News

Not only is adequate training lacking for teachers but there are also limited resources to deliver proper lessons to children with special education needs. This is the view of President of the Guyana Teachers Union [GTU], Mr. Mark Lyte.
Lyte has an appreciation for this state of affairs since he has served a teacher for many years.
According to the GTU President, children with special needs require attention and therefore a teacher with merely the mainstream training cannot do justice to a process of education delivery to such learners.
Moreover, he noted that a move to integrate these children into regular classrooms, without adequately trained teachers, could prove to be disastrous.
This, Lyte said, is compounded by the too large class sizes that often constitute the public school classrooms.
“These children need special attention and as such must be placed in small classes,” said Lyte as he continued by highlighting that the current curriculum in the public school system does not really cater to children with special education needs.
“These children are at a disadvantage compared to a normal child…our present outdated curriculum which is in need of review, and has to be fixed before we bring these children in to the regular classrooms,” said Mr. Lyte as he underscored that there are a number of factors that must be addressed with urgency otherwise children with special needs will continue to be short-changed.
Special education needs is one of the areas in which the Commission of Inquiry [COI] into the education system has had a keen interest. According to Chairman of COI, Ed Caesar, the Commission has viewed special education as “an important part in any Ministry, any Government and in any country.”
He, moreover, disclosed that the subject matter is one that will be highlighted extensively in the final report of the COI slated to be handed over to the Education Ministry in a matter of weeks. “The final report will speak to special education in a major way but for now because we have gone to places like the Society for the Blind; to David Rose School for the Handicap, to two special schools in Region Ten and so on, we recognise that enough attention is not being paid to those of us who are challenged. We have got to look at our brothers and sisters who are challenged,” Caesar said.
He added, “If we do not cause those who are challenged to become employable the burden to maintain them will be on our country. Therefore we have to look at special education in a major way.”
For this reason, Caesar said that the Commission is suggesting that there be the creation of an Advisory Board in Education.
“We are also saying that if the Committee systems that exist in Education…if those systems function well there will be no need for an Advisory Board. The Senior Policy Making Group [SPMG] suggestions come from the bottom…
“People down there have suggestions and recommendations to make to the most senior of us in the Ministry or in this country but are we listening to them?” questioned Caesar.
The National Centre for Educational Resource Development [NCERD] has been offering some level of training to teachers in hopes of helping to improve the delivery of special needs education as part of the process of fostering inclusion of children with special education needs. But from all indications this is not nearly enough to prepare the mainstream classroom to cater to the needs of children with special needs.

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