Ministry of Education to add new programmes to assist students with disabilities

By Michron Robinson

There will be more special needs programmes in primary schools when the new academic year starts in September.

That announcement came on Wednesday from Deputy Chief Education Officer Joy Adamson, who said the Ministry of Education was committed to creating spaces for children with special needs in the island’s schools.

“In September, we’ll be increasing the number of primary schools which will have special educational programmes and which provide additional access for students who require specialist teachers and smaller teacher-pupil ratio classes,” she said, although she did not say how many schools or which ones would have these programmes.

“We also plan to embark on teacher sensitivity and awareness training for students with special needs.”

Adamson was speaking as the Barbados Council for the Disabled launched the My Inclusive School competition which is aimed at developing more accommodating environments for students with disabilities.

“I support, and my ministry supports, the idea of inclusion which fits in with your theme for the month, Transformative Solutions for Inclusive Development . . . . Let’s not set them apart and treat them differently. They too will be prepared for the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Exam, they will be integrated into mainstream classes, they will start preparation for CXC, CSEC and CVQs. They will attend our tertiary institutions and they will become the entrepreneurs [they are meant to be],” Adamson said.

“Inclusion within education is a philosophy that says ‘let us do everything within our ability to ensure that students with disabilities can learn alongside their peers in school. Inclusion says ‘I will not ignore you’; it says ‘we respect diversity and differences within our classrooms’,” she added.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Jehu Wiltshire, who gave remarks on behalf of Minister Kirk Humphrey, said the ministry was committed to inclusivity.

“We in the Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs are making every effort to build an inclusive society, a society that is based on compassion, that is based on empathy, and that is why I think it is so very important that today we are celebrating Disability Awareness Day because it has to begin at a very young age,” he said.

Wiltshire urged students to be empathetic in dealing with people who are differently abled.

“Those students who are exposed to the various programmes that the ministry is rolling out in the next year or so will truly understand and empathise with persons with disabilities so that you would recognise that these are persons who are able to do anything that we can do,” he said, adding that his ministry is leading by example.

Under the ‘My Inclusive School’ initiative, schools had to identify two Day of the Disabled ambassadors who were tasked with developing initiatives that promote inclusivity and working with students to implement them.

The ambassadors are Ryan-Janae Yarde of Workman’s Primary, Travis Downer of St Matthew’s Primary, Krystal Yearwood of Grantley Adams Memorial, Jahzia Williams of Princess Margaret Secondary, and Annette Mac Donald, a member of the ancillary staff at the Deighton Griffith Secondary School.

They must design a school project to accommodate a disability and highlight changes to be made to the school to make it more inclusive for the chosen disability. 

Winning entries are to be awarded on December 3, International Day of Persons with Disabilities. (MR)