Concerns that enough is not being done for the disabled faction of the society have been amplified by a number of organisations for the disabled following the unveiling of the 2012 budget two Fridays ago.
However, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, has asserted that “the budget might not be the best guide to determine what it is we are doing for some areas. It would be more actions…”
The Minister has cautioned that persons should be a bit more careful when considering the 2012 budget, adding that “using the budget or specific lines in the budget to determine what we are doing for a particular group” may not be the ideal thing to do.
For instance, the Minister pointed out that even when it comes to addressing the needs of women all such details are not outlined in the budget. “Maybe we need to get there at some point but right now we don’t budget in a way that says exactly what we are doing for women. When we provide water, roads and schools that are close to your homes these are services for women too but they are not cost in the budget as what we are doing for women.”
Similarly, the Minister said that she has been urging people to be careful when it comes to the budget, particularly as it relates to disabled people. “You don’t see next to education ‘X’ dollars for disability needs or for the children who are disabled or for parents who have disabled children.”
According to the Minister, even before the reading of the recent national budget she had devised a plan to hear from parents, students and teachers as it relates to what more can be done to serve their needs.
“You won’t see a cost for that in the budget but we are going to start consulting on how we are going to better serve our disabled persons in the education sector.”
More than $26 billion has been allocated to the education sector this year to cater to immense plans. Among these, according to Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, will be special emphasis directed to those who are differently abled with a view of empowering them to achieve personal fulfilment thus enabling them to make a productive contribution to society.
He noted that “we have budgeted for the construction of an annexe at the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre which will cater to 60 differently abled students and will be equipped with the essential sanitary facilities, furnishing, and a computer room.”
Further, the training facility will be rehabilitated so as to provide technical and vocational training to the students at the centre, Dr Singh added.
Aimed at improving the delivery of special education in the public education system, the Ministry is looking to incorporate the expertise of two teachers who are currently completing Masters Degrees overseas in the area of Special Needs Education. This is according to Chief Education Officer, Olato Sam.
He said that among a list of 10 areas of focus currently gaining the attention of the Ministry, Special Needs Education is situated prominently. According to him, the Ministry has recognized that there is a lack of trained teachers in this area. As a result, when the teachers in training return it is expected that their knowledge-base will be utilized with a view of training other teachers.
“Once those teachers come back into the system we will try to use them to get a larger mass of teachers with those skills and hopefully what will happen now, is that the teachers in our mainstream schools will be trained to recognize pupils who have specials needs, so we will be doing the necessary referrals in some cases, and where cases are mild even address those needs within the structures of the classroom.”
Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/04/10/budget-cannot-outline-everything-being-done-for-the-disabled-%E2%80%93-manickchand/