My name is Melrose Cotay, a teacher by profession, having worked in the field of disability for a period of 30 years. I am a Sierra Leonean and mother of two children. I work for Leonard Cheshire International as the Training and Development Officer for West Africa.
Sierra Leone, as we all know, is in west Africa and is basically a developing country which had a population of 3 million before the war which has so devastated our country. The country is divided into 2 units for administrative purposes - the Western area and the Provinces. The capital is Freetown in the western area and the largest town in the provinces is Bo, situated 153 miles east of Freetown. There are two Cheshire services in the country, one in Freetown and one in Bo. Both are residential. Today I shall be talking about my experiences with the Freetown Cheshire service.
As inclusive education has for a long time been my goal, my paper will highlight some of the methods I have used to try to make inclusive education happen.
In Sierra Leone the pattern of education for disabled children has been exclusive rather than inclusive, consisting mainly of services made available by organisations catering solely for disabled people. The programmes put in place have been characterised by a dearth of specialist trained staff, inadequate and obsolete equipment and lack of funds to meet minimum requirements.
Also, the danger of education in special schools is that it increases segregation. Residential schools diminish the role of the family and also have great consequences for the social inclusion of pupils as adults.
The only realistic approach for educating people with disabilities is through inclusion.
In the early 80s I had just been made a head teacher at Freetown Cheshire service. As a result of the 1981 Education Act which states that ' children with special educational needs must be educated in ordinary schools provided that account has been taken of parents' views', the 9 year olds from class 5 of the Cheshire Primary school were integrated into two neighbouring mainstream schools.
It also became necessary for us to integrate the pupils who had taken the national primary school exams - these are the 11 year olds- so that they could enter secondary schools.
Although some successes came out of these two projects, amongst which was the progress made by children socially integrating with others in group activities and feeling confident about themselves as they feel they belong to the wider community, yet the hazards or failures were numerous. There have been negative aspects such as overcrowded classes, teachers and peers giving negative labels to the disabled children, physically accessibility with children having to climb long flights of stairs or travel long distances to school. Wheelchairs, crutches and callipers are not provided in ordinary schools.
The first government policy statement on the issue of disability, which was initiated in 1995, appeared in the new national education Action Plan which recognised the need for a comprehensive policy and implementation programmes, designed to help disabled people develop as part of the nation's manpower resource base.
In our effort to assist the government to implement this policy, the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues (an umbrella organisation of and for disabled people) organised a sensitisation campaign and conference in 1996, entitled 'Education for the Disabled in Sierra Leone' Amongst the plan of Action adopted at that conference were:
1. To absorb or integrate children who are not severely disabled into
the normal school system and that in each zone and at every level of schooling,
a school or schools shall be identified to take in such students.
2. That
the curricula of teacher training colleges shall include training for working
with children who are mainstreamed.
In 1997 Cheshire, again in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues, held a conference with the theme, 'Equalisation of Opportunities - accessibility to education, physical accessibility, and access to transportation and employment'. As a result of that conference, the government is now putting some attention on disability issues especially in the area of accessibility - adaptations are being made on the newly constructed roads.
In the long term, Cheshire plans to work with government and other NGOs on:
1. In service training for teachers and parents
2. Introducing extra
teaching areas in the national curriculum like self help, mobility, language
skills for deaf children and ultimately to make the curriculum flexible.
3.
Working with disabled children themselves in areas of empowerment and self
esteem
4. Carrying out a survey on the incidence of disability in the
country
5. Creating an active information network to attract public
awareness
6. Getting government to implement recommendation s made in the
1995 report, 'The Study on Special Needs Education'
7. Overall, to make
inclusive education happen in Sierra Leone.
Cheshire, in collaboration with other organisations of and for disabled people, are also trying to initiate pilot programmes in which disabled children can be included as early as nursery or kindergarten stage; and also to introduce community rehabilitation programmes which we intend to let work side by side with inclusive education. This will enable families to be more involved with the development of their children, which is of vital importance. Contributions to national effort should flow upwards from the individual and the family group right up to the national level.
Let me strongly say, disabled children are very actively empowering themselves by creating groups and clubs that can promote their issues and raise public awareness.
Disabled children in the recent past have featured prominently on the air and in programmes organised for the 'Day of Broadcasting', 'The Day of the African Child' and have participated in conferences and seminars depicting the 'Rights of the Child'. They have expressed their views and thoughts on questionnaires.
As regards our pilot programmes for the inclusion of young children, it would have been in full swing by now had it not been for the prolonged and wasteful war we are faced with. The strides the disabled children also were making to push their issues positively would have doubled had it not been because of the difficulties compounded by the political upheaval. Since the war started in 1991, disabled children have suffered greatly. Further conflicts in 1997 and 1999 resulted in shortages of basic necessities, restricted movement, acute trauma and closure of schools. Conflicts definitely hamper progress and development; hence Sierra Leone's plan to promote inclusive education was derailed by the two wars.
Finally, I must state that, as we set about repairing and rebuilding our devastated country, we should design our facilities to create an environment more friendly to people with disabilities. This disaster which has overtaken our country, though it is terrible, has given us yet another opportunity to re-integrate everybody into one society which includes disabled people.
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