DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION/CAREER GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING IN UGANDA – AS AT 31ST JANUARY 2003

SECTION A: SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION

1. Background:

Although all children have aright to be educated, this right was not easy to be implemented earlier. Children with disability were not being catered for or neither being considered as worthy educatable.

Uganda like all developing countries saw the need to develop the activities of Special Education to meet the needs of children with disabilities.

In the beginning, the provision of Special Education was purely in the hands of the Non Government Organisation (NGO) who were mainly missionaries and some relatives who needed to educate their children or relatives.

The development of services for persons with disabilities was either hindered or accelerated by the perception and conceptions a community had concerning the target group.

2. Legislation:

Uganda Government did not posses any legislation as regards the education of persons with disability before 1980. People with disabilities were taken as sick, possessed or cast.

This tremendously affected the delivery of educational services to them. The Ministry Of Education then established a sector of Special Education within its structure in 1983.

The section was run by one person and was under funded. Most of the activities conducted at that time still depended on the NGO.

The Kajubi Commission that was set up in 1987 submitted their report in 1989. This report stressed the need for support for Special Education activities by Government in the country.

This was reflected later in the 1992 Government White Paper on Education. And since then, government has increasingly provided support to Special Education.

In 1990, came the Jomitien Agreement. In here, the World leaders pledged to ensure the right to education for all regardless of individual differences.

The World declaration on Education for All, Artile1: 1 states that ‘every person, child, youth and adult shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed too meet their basic learning needs.

Uganda is a signatory to this agreement. This influenced the educational provision for children with special needs in Uganda and meant that even children with special needs were to benefit or be catered for under the educational provision in the country.

In 1994, then came the Salamanca Agreement. This marked a milestone in the provision of educational services to all children with special needs.

The Salamanca Agreement came timely when Uganda was finalising work on her constitution. Then the 1995 constitution article 30 provided for the rights to education by all.

While article 35 of the same constitution states that ‘Persons with disabilities have a right to respect and human dignity, and the State and Society shall take appropriate measures to ensure that they realise their full mental and physical potential.

Subsequent development came with the declaration of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1996 and its’ implementation in 1997. The implementation was preceded by parliament discussing the modalities.

Among which in any family, children with disabilities were taken as a priority during the enrolment in mainstream school.

3.The establishment of Special Needs Education (SNE)/Education Assessment Resource Services   (EARS) Programme in the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES:

The objective of this programme was to provide a comprehensive programme of assistance to learners between the ages of 0 to 18 years who have special educational needs.

It also aims at providing the needed support to these learners, parents, teachers and other service providers.

The aim was to provide an equalised type of educational opportunities to all children with special needs.

Since the establishment of this programme the Education Assessment Resource Service Centre (EARS) have been built in the 45 districts with the district support and funded by DANIDA.

It is assumed that the additional eleven (11) districts will have their plans included in the Local government development plan and shall therefore be constructed under the same arrangement.

4.The establishment of a Department of Special Needs Education/Guidance and Counselling

With restructuring of the Ministry of Education and Sports in 1999, a fully-fledged department named Special Needs Education /Guidance and Counselling has been established and staffed. The single staff that it had in 1983, now has been replaced by a team of fourteen members of staff namely:

• Commissioner
• Assistant Commissioner, Special Education
• Assistant Commissioner, Guidance and Counselling
• Two Principal Education officers
• Two Senior Education Officers
• Two Education Officers
• One personal secretaries
• One Steno Secretary
• One copy typist
• One Office Messenger
• One driver

5.Policy Framework for Educationally Disadvantaged Children

•  Arising from the April 2001 ESR, the department was charged with the responsibility of coming out wit a costed policy framework for the educationally disadvantaged children.
• Task Force was formed immediately
• Three studies were commissioned and final reports submitted to the task Force
• Two consultation Workshops have been conducted namely one at Masaka for South Western Region and the other at Sports View Hotel Kireka for Central Region
• Draft Policy is in place and has been discussed by SPM, ESCC
• Draft Policy was discussed by Top Management Meeting (TMM) on 30th Sept 02
• Education Funding Agencies (EFAG) submitted comments on the document on 4/10/02

Three more regional awareness/consultative workshops were conducted with an objective of receiving more views and gain more consensuses about the policy.
The policy was finally presented, discussed and passed with amendments during the October 2002 Education Sector Review (ESR)

6. Resources

 These have been  seen in the following developments;

1.Office accommodation

SNE/EARS programme has constructed forty five (45) Office blocks and furnished them in the forty five (45) districts. In the same districts, three staff houses have also been built.

These are houses where the children can live at, during school times and go to their homes either on weekends or school holidays. The small home are equipped with double Decker- beds and mattress. These small homes were six and were mainly for children with hearing Impairment and are located at: -

• Kapchorwa Demostration School
• Rutsya P/s in Mbarara,
• Laroo P/s in Gulu,
• Ojwina P/s in Lira,
• Toroma Girls P/s in Katakwi,
• Rukoki Model P/s in Kasese.

3. Resource rooms:
These are classrooms with specialised equipment and educational materials where children with special learning needs can be withdrawn for extra-specialised teaching based on their needs. The following schools/units had resource rooms constructed for them: -

• Tukore Invalids Salvation Primary School in Mbarara,
• Arua primary school in Arua,
• Badadiri P/s in Mbale,
• Father Hilders P/s in Soroti,
• Nakatunya P/s in Soroti,
• Mpondwe P/s in Kasese,
• Agururu P/s in Tororo,
• Kyambogo P/s in Kampala,
• Entebbe children’s welfare unit in Entebbe,
• Gulu Prison’s in Gulu,
• Luwero Boys P/s in Luwero,
• Iganga Dem. School in Iganga
• Buckley High school in Iganga,
• Magale P/s in Mbale.

4.School facility grants

• Under School Facility Grant (SFG) and School Completion Grant (SCF), structural plans have been designed to cater for the needs of children with disability. E.g. By providing them with ramps, large doors and disability friendly toilets
• Government has promised the construction of two Special Primary Schools this FY 2003/2004
• A stakeholders meeting was held to select the sites. The following districts were chosen; Gulu district for children with motor impairment and Mukono district for children with visual Impairment.

7.Procurements

The following items have been procured and distributed to districts/Units /Special Schools: (See Appendix 1 for details).

8.Finance
A budget line of three hundred eight nine million (389m) shillings has been allocated under Medium Term Budget Framework (MTBF) to fund some of the activities in the department in FY 2002/2003.

Ninety two (92) Special Schools and Units catering for two thousand one hundred children (2100)) children with disabilities are receiving subvention grants. This is to enable them provide for things like specialised scholastic materials, simple medicines and feeding.