Synod bemoans lack of special needs teachers

Livingstonia Synod of the Church for Central Africa Presbytery (CCAP) has said children with special needs in the country will continue to face challenges in academics if there is no deliberate effort to train more teachers for such students.

Project Manager for special needs in the synod’s education department Boniface Massah said this in Karonga on Thursday during a District Executives  Committee (DEC) meeting.

“As a country Malawi has a policy on equal access to education but this seems untrue for children with special needs because the country has few trained teachers who have necessary skills to teach pupils or students with different challenges,” said Massah.

“Because of this lack of manpower there have been high dropout rates of these children especially those with hearing and vision impairments,” he added.

Massah told the gathering that the development compelled his department to embark on a project that aims at raising awareness among parents, teachers and communities on the need of paying attention to special needs education.

“Our aim is to let everyone know the rights of children with disabilities and we want to promote inclusive education to make sure that such children have access to education just like their normal colleagues,”   Massah explained.

The project which uses an approach termed Advanced Parent Awareness Community Trainings (APACT) receives funding from the Scottish government and is currently being implemented in Karonga, Chitipa and Mzimba districts.

Montfort College is the only institution in Malawi that trains special needs teachers. On average it graduates 90 instructors annually a population of over 60,000 children with special needs a development which according to Massah compromises quality service delivery.

Additionally, he said the project aims at letting children with such conditions understand their situation better through parent support groups.

District Social Welfare Officer for Karonga Heston Jaji hailed the synod for the project saying it would help change the attitude of people towards education for children who are physically challenged.

“For decades people have thought that disability is a medical issue but by the end of this project they will have known that it ha of late migrated to being more of a social issue,” Jaji commented.

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