Parents of children with disabilities have cried out for assistance, saying their children are denied the chance to study with fellow learners in primary and secondary schools due to their ststus
Their main goal in this struggle, is to see their children study in schools with other children who have no disabilities.
This, however, is still far from being accomplished as some school head teachers deny children with disability the opportunity to study with other children who do not have disabilities.
Annet Nabakooza, a guardian of Eric Kisakye, said Kisakye was denied access to a secondary school in Bombo, because of Kisakye’s condition of hydrocephalus and they indicated that his academic performance at school was not good.
According to Nabakooza, the school said they had no time to give him extra lessons.
Prossy Nakaliita, the mother of Esther Nakayiiza, said her daughter was rejected because Nakayiiza needs to visit the toilet frequently, and the school couldn’t provide a special toilet for her.
Nakayiiza has difficulty in walking, and she cannot easily walk into the classrooms without support.
Priscilla Kisakye, the advocacy and communications officer for the Uganda Society For the Disabled Children, said that many children have been denied access to schools because they needed special treatment, since the reopening of schools.
According to Kisakye, every child should study at any school despite their disability. Article 35 of the Constitution spells out the rights of persons with disabilities.
It states that persons with disabilities have a right to respect and human dignity, and the State and society shall take appropriate measures to ensure that they realize their full mental and physical potential.
This means they have rights to education and equal treatment and freedom from discrimination.
The education ministry, however, attributed the denial of disabled students to infrastructural challenges in schools and lack of teachers with a background in special needs education.
Head teachers in some schools think children with disability should be admitted to special needs schools.
On the condition of anonymity, one teacher revealed that some parents take away their children when they realize that the same school has enrolled children with disabilities. He added that some head teachers think students with disabilities do not perform well.
The ministry
Sarah Bugoosi, the commissioner of inclusive education and special needs at the education ministry said many schools don’t know how to help children with disabilities, and don’t have what it takes to support them.
“There is inadequate awareness in schools that children with disability are there, and they need to go to school,” Bugoosi said.
Due to this fear, schools sometimes refuse to admit disabled students without even trying.
“What the ministry needs is to have a policy in place that supports inclusive education. The policy will outline how to go about with children with special needs. The policy will guide on infrastructure development, and how teachers for special needs will be posted or deployed. We need two to three teachers with a background in special needs in every school,” Bugoosi explained.
“Kyambogo University has been training teachers for special needs education every year, there are many teachers trained on special needs, but they are not properly placed to support learners with special needs,” Bugoosi added.
She added that the policy should spell out that as you build schools, they should be accessible to children with special needs.
She revealed that the Government and civil society groups like the Nation Union for Disabled Persons in Uganda have been advocating for improving accessibility to schools for children with disability.
She said that where children are reported on mass media to have been denied access, the organisations try to reach out to schools to resolve the situation.
On the question of enrolment of children with disability in schools, she explained that many children with disability had gone to school before the lockdown, but some dropped out due to school fees and the cost of feeding challenges.
On July 24, 2018, the Government of Uganda joined the International Disability community to participate in the first Global Disability Summit (GDS) which was hosted by Britain alongside the International Disability Alliance and Kenya.
Like other Global champions of disability rights, Uganda embraced this periodic accountability event and made commitments to achieve disability-inclusive development.