Harare, Zimbabwe(News of the South)-The absence of a national policy on inclusive education is hampering efforts to make progress leaving a big number of physically challenged children deprived of education according to experts who spoke during an education indaba in Harare.
The experts were unanimous that societal attitudes and an absent policy were some of the major hindrances to progress in the offering of inclusive education.
Some teachers who spoke at the event, organised by Save the Children, said children with learning difficulties, some induced by physical abnormalities, were being left behind as society was not equipped enough to offer them the proper facilities, assistance and have right attitudes towards them.
Dr Tsitsi Chataika from the University of Zimbabwe said their is no cohesion between Ministries to deal with the issue.
“Im doing a situational analysis of people with albinism and the story from what I have realised is that the way we operate as a country is we operate in boxes”.
” Each Ministry does its own thing but we need to realise that we are all working to support this one same person”, she said.
Another expert on education from UNICEF concurred and called for a concerted push by civil society to approach government and push for the policy.
“The greatest barrier to inclusive education is the absence of a policy, we are not going anywhere without a policy.
“If we can come up with a policy then we can identify the problem. The policy becomes the basis for the where, why, who and when, when it come to inclusive education. Without it their is no basis for Inclusive Education”, said the expert.
Inclusive education happens when children with and without disabilities participate and learn together in the same classes.
According to some of the gathered experts research has shown that when a child with disabilities attends classes alongside peers who do not have disabilities, good things happen.
This they said justifies calls to annul special classes in which those who have disabilities learn alone from those without disabilities.
For a long time, children with disabilities were educated in separate classes or in separate schools.
Recent trends have however shown that special education does not mean separate education.
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