Most older teachers not equipped to teach children with special needs

In 2011 the Swaziland Ministry of Education and Training formulated a policy on Inclusive Education. One of the fundamental objectives was to allow child with special educational needs (SEN) to enroll in the mainstream at their local schools and avoid a situation whereby the child is uprooted from his or her environment and made to start life somewhere else without the support of the parent and outside their normal environment. However, some teachers have come forward lamenting that they are not equipped to teach children with special educational needs, even though they want to, owing to the fact that they were not trained for it.

Local teacher training institutions have over the years started to put some emphasis on special needs, which teachers who have been in the field for longer say was not the case before. A teacher at a school in Mbabane, Muzi Shongwe* said there was lack of capacity building to empower teachers to better assist the learners. He trained at Southern Africa Nazarene University (SANU) and started teaching in 1994. Shongwe said in most government schools, there was lack of programmes and resources suitable for the challenged child, and the infrastructure was not conducive to the needs of the children. “The policy on inclusive education is a very noble initiative. But we lack political will. The policy only exists on paper. My heart bleeds for those children. Just like any other, they have a future. They have dreams. We cannot exclude them based on the special circumstances,” he said.

Ministry of Education and Training Senior Inspector for Special Education Needs, Cebsile Nxumalo disputed that the policy existed only on paper, asserting that schools that had embraced the principles of Inclusive Education were improving their policies, teaching and learning and resourcing approaches to cater for diversity in their classrooms.

Shongwe said the situation would improve if government capacitated teachers by either paying for or subsidising their studies in special needs training.  He also recommended that the National Curriculm Centre should design a relevant curriculum specific to the needs of the children and that resources must be provided to enhance the programmes. “My school has limited collaboration with Ekwetsembeni Special School. They assist with activities that can be assigned to the learners and how to manage them. We’ve also engaged inspectors from the Ministry on capacity building. Mid to long term, we encourage our staff members to enroll at the university. But before that happens, the children’s future looks bleak, sadly,” said Shongwe.

Responding to Shongwe’s grievance that there were no adequate resources to help children with special needs in schools, Nxumalo said resources were multifaceted. They could be financial, material, or otherwise, and the ministry encouraged schools to identify the specific resources they needed and then include those resources in their school development plan and budget.  “Where they need external support, they then make the SEN unit aware of the specific support they require.  The Ministry has over the years supported schools in this regard,” she said. Nxumalo also said there was no separate curriculum, adding that the ideal situation would rather be to modify and adapt the existing curriculum to suit the needs of every learner in the classroom. 

Nxumalo said all teachers who go through a Primary Teachers Diploma or Secondary Teacher's Diploma in all the teacher training colleges do Special Needs training from 1st to 3rd year.  “This has been the case since 2009.  Therefore, teachers now graduate with a good base on SEN issues.  In each primary school we therefore expect that there are one or two teachers who have done SEN. Furthermore, the SEN unit does run capacity building workshops for school. This means every year we select a few schools (primary and high schools) to benefit from the workshops. The number of schools to benefit is determined by the funds we have that year for running workshops,” said Nxumalo.

Although Nxumalo said since 2009 all teachers had been receiving SEN training, another teacher who graduated from Swaziland College of Technology in 2012 emphatically denied that he ever got such training. He, however, went on to teach at a special school. Fortunately for Mukelwe Dlamini*, he has since enrolled with SANU for a degree in Inclusive Education and Special Needs. “I was learning by doing and experimenting with the children because I had no clue how to teach them. Sometimes whatever strategy I used would win, sometimes not,” he said when quizzed on how he managed to teach the children with no training. Dlamini said the only special skill he possessed was that he could use sign fluently, which placed him in good stead with the deaf students at the school. He undertook to learn sign language for his own personal development even before he went for tertiary education. Since enrolling for the studies with SANU, Dlamini said he feels a lot more confident and empowered to teach learners with special needs. “Now I understand that learners are diverse and that the one-size-fits-all approach which I employed before is not necessarily the way to go. I am learning different strategies one may employ to teach my students,” he said. He added that he was grateful to SRA for sponsoring his studies, and that he was fortunate because there were many teachers who knew nothing on SEN, yet some of them were teaching such children.

Although there might be some advancement in equipping teachers for SEN, what is very clear is that there are many teachers that graduated before a proper roll out of the training that are still out in the cold. It is a genuine concern that should really be addressed with the seriousness it deserves, because the end result is a child with special needs who remains illiterate even as he attends school; all because his/her teacher doesn’t know what to do with him. In some circumstances, parents are requested to withdraw their child from school because the teachers have thrown in the towel on that child. Children might end up staying at home or being forced to commute to distant special schools. 

*Names changed on request

Children with special educational needs should not be banished from regular schools

The story headlined “Build more special schools” in the Swazi Observer of November 21 was quite an upsetting read. A senator moved a motion in parliament to the effect that, with funds permitting, government should build more schools to cater for pupils with special needs, because “an ideal situation would be to separate pupils according to their needs to avoid lowering the standards just because teachers are trying to accommodate slow learners.”

He was also quoted as saying the inclusive nature of the country’s education system had a potential to compromise the quality of education in the country’s schools. No offence intended, but the education system in Swaziland can hardly be described as inclusive, especially when it comes to children with intellectual disabilities.  Whole families are moving from far and wide to chase a handful of schools that can accommodate their children in other areas. Children with special educational needs are commuting long distances for the very same reason.  Inclusive education means that all students, with or without disabilities, attend and are welcomed by their neighbourhood schools in age-appropriate, regular classes and are supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of the life of the school. When there are still allegations that “slow-learners” impede the progress of other students, then it means there’s piece of the puzzle that’s still missing. With the right kind of support, there will be a way around accommodating all students without fear of those with learning disabilities disadvantaging anyone. That would be inclusive learning.  There is well-documented evidence that when typical learners and those with disabilities learn together, there are good results academically and socially. 

Susan Nyatanga, a trainee special needs teacher from University College in Denmark said suggesting exclusionary policies when research is showing that students actually mutually benefit from being in mainstream schools is not only retrogressive to societal development, but also promotes discrimination of the special needs learners. “Instead of arguing that they lower educational standards, why not test them according to their abilities? When teachers are trained properly, they are equipped with many methods through which they can assist all children according to their abilities. A progressive argument would be on how best to train the teachers to enable them to teach the children with special needs, or what can be done to equip schools to accommodate these children. As educationists, if we restrict their world instead of expanding it, we would have dismally failed,” she added.

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences argues that we should not have the same test for everyone. Children have different talents and should be tested according to those talents and their level of functioning.

Nyatanga said most special schools in Denmark were actually being gradually dissolved as the country moves towards integrated education. The whole world is moving towards that. The UNESCO World Conference on Special Needs Education, held in Salamanca, Spain in 1994 made very important provisions which Swaziland would do well to adopt. One of the recommendations reads, “…those with special educational needs must have access to regular schools which should accommodate them within a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs.” The conference called on governments worldwide “to adopt as a matter of law and policy the principle of inclusive education, enrolling all children in regular schools, unless there are compelling reasons for doing otherwise.” If Swaziland is moving towards First World status, separating children based on their educational needs should not even cross anyone’s mind. If we seclude them, what will do next? Build a little world for them to live because they are deemed slower than others?

Swaziland has its own success stories in inclusive education. Inclusion does not necessarily mean all learners will always be in the same classes. There can be a classroom for those with special educational needs, where their strengths are assessed. They then join other classes for subjects they are strong at. Enjabulweni School is doing it, with very good results. They have the Paiva Learning Centre where children with special educational needs are based, and those that are strong in certain subjects join the mainstream classes for those subjects. All children with or without learning difficulties participate in school plays, sports and all activities. Stepping Stones opened a class for autism this year and is also doing very well with inclusive learning, as you will read in next week’s instalment.

Schools are not all about academic achievements.  They are also places where children’s outlook of the world is cultivated. It is where they are taught to discriminate or embrace those that are different. What will be teaching typical children when we say those that don’t learn at the same pace as them should be isolated? The excluded children will be deprived of the opportunity to socialize; the only world they will know is that which comprises people with their challenges. Children learn from socialization. The world is bigger than whatever challenge the children might have. Inclusive education in regular classrooms minimises the likelihood of a child with disability becoming an adult segregated from broader society.

There could be some parents who would prefer special schools over mainstream, depending on the condition of their child or other factors. The research that I have done, however, indicates that many parents of children with learning difficulties would rather have them in mainstream school, with a separate class where they can learn at their own pace. They are just children at the end of the day, and their disabilities or conditions should not define them. They should all be treated like equal citizens, not a burden that should be eliminated from mainstream schools and be condemned to some other corner like lepers. The Salamanca Statement recommends that governments should promote parental partnerships so that parent representatives are involved in the design and implementation of programmes intended to enhance the education of their children. Parents should have a choice and a say over where to place children with special educational needs. Currently Swazi parents do not.

Published in Swazi Observer on Sunday