Education
By Anita Eboigbe
Abuja, May 12, 2018 (NAN) An expert, Dr Badewa Adejugbe-Williams has called on the Federal Government to set up Special Education Department in public schools across the country to cater for children with special needs.
Adejugbe-Williams, who is the founder of Royal School of Educational Therapy Foundation (RSET-F), made this call on Saturday in Abuja at an exhibition by children with learning disabilities tagged ‘Gallery of Talents’.
The exhibition, supported by The American Embassy, was organised by the school which helps children with neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism and down syndrome, and those who are at risk of academic failure.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event saw the presentation and sales of artworks, including paintings and mats, and short films by children with special needs.
According to Adejugbe-Williams, Government has to make public schooling equitable by providing equal opportunities for regular children and those with special needs.
She said, “Government needs to set up a special needs department in every school.
“They have to train the teachers on how to work with children with special needs and those who are not able to function in the regular classes.
“They can have a separate department where they can do a pullout or they can have their own programmes run in that special day class.
“And get all the structures they need that are tailored to their abilities since public schools are free,” Adejugbe-Williams said.
She said Government intervention is important because it was expensive for private individuals to tackle the issues alone, due to the high cost of learning equipment.
She appreciated the American Embassy and the Australian High Commission for supporting RSET-F while urging the general public to continue advocacy for children with learning disabilities.
Adejugbe-Williams advised parents to follow their intuitions in order to discover learning disabilities of children early enough, and pay deaf ears to stigmatisation.
Earlier, Mr Joseph Schaller, Public Diplomacy Officer, U.S. Embassy told NAN that the embassy is happy with the progress the special needs children have made at the school had made as the embassy had previously given them a grant of about 20,000 dollars.
“At the mission, one of our key goals is called promoting opportunity and development so we support this school because its creating opportunities for children with learning disabilities in Nigeria
“We are really glad to see that initiative because they are producing lots of things that the general public will like to buy that would help support the school.
“I was actually looking at the needs that they have and considering procuring some technological devices to help teach the students,” Schaller said.
A parent Madam Ajebike Sanni told NAN that she was very appreciative of the progress her child had made since he joined RSET-F.
She described the reality of having a child with learning disabilities as challenging, adding that special educational centres are important to help children achieve inclusion. (NAN)
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edited by Sadiya Hamza