By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Takoradi, Jan. 18, GNA – The lack of inclusive education for persons with disability (PWDs) continues to be a barrier to developing their innate potentials in society.
Though the country had a few specialised institutions for PWDs, a more inclusive educational system, as stipulated in the Persons with Disability Act; 2006, Act 715, must be given utmost attention.
Mrs Hannah Awadzi, the Executive Director of the Special Mothers Project, a Non-Governmental Organisation, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said: “We need the full inclusion in our education system to give meaning to the Act”.
The challenges PWDs were facing bordered on accessibility to educational infrastructure, appropriate tutors and learning materials, among other things, she said.
Meanwhile, the Reverend Professor John Frank Eshun, Vice Chancellor of the Takoradi Technical University, has appealed to the Government and corporate organisations to support the university to provide inclusive educational environment for persons with disability.
The University, he said, currently had more than 40 deaf students pursuing various programmes and it had plans to employ more interpreters to meet the special needs of those students.
He commended the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission and the Minister of Education for recognising the contributions of the school to give meaning to the lives of persons with disability.
A total of 26 disabled students, comprising 19 deaf students, and11 physically challenged, graduated recently.
In all, 124 physically challenged persons have passed through the institutions since the establishment of the Disability Support Unit in 2017, making it the highest across all universities in Ghana.
GNA