Support PWD learners to excel

Results of the recently released PLE, UCE and UACE examinations yet again exposed imbalances in the performance of learners across the country that needs urgent redress. The results show glaring disparities in the performance of urban and rural schools, private and government aided schools, boys and girls, Science and Arts subjects and learners with disabilities and those without. As a deaf person, it is the latter category which is of interest to me.
While sections of the country registered improved performance, PWD learners registered a sustained underperformance. Regrettably, the performance of such secluded groups is hardly highlighted in Uneb statistics and in media reports, which tend to focus on star performers.

With support from Deaf Child Worldwide, the Uganda National Association of the Deaf (UNAD) runs Deaf Child Education and Empowerment Project for deaf children in Jinja District. The recent PLE results show that deaf pupils under this project performed very poorly!
Of the seven deaf pupils who sat for PLE last year in the district, none passed in first and second grade. While the government developed the Inclusive Education Policy, the Uganda National Education Policy and created the department of Special Needs and Inclusive Education at the Ministry of Education to enhance learning prospects of PWDs, many obstacles still exist.

These include lack of instructional materials; inadequate teachers with expertise in special needs, insufficient financial allocations to support special needs education and communication barriers manifested by limited awareness and usage of sign language by key education stakeholders such as parents, teachers and learners. Others are poor marking procedures – an issue for which a 2015 report by UNAD on Access to Quality Education by Deaf Children in Jinja District faults Uneb over.

Urgent interventions are needed to improve the situation. Government should institute a programme to retrain serving teachers in sign language countrywide. Ultimately, there is need to include sign language in all teacher training colleges.
Government should also increase subvention fund and ensure it is constantly given to the schools on a termly basis to avert the current trend where it is irregularly given to schools and in inconsistent amounts. Parents and teachers also need to be sensitised to appreciate that their deaf children can learn and excel academically.

Clearly, the poor performance of PWD learners affects the emancipation of such secluded groups through education. This is because of their vulnerability; it’s only a few PWDs/deaf learners that get opportunity to study only to fail due to systematic education challenges.
Hanifah Nalwoga,
Project coordinator for the Deaf Child Education and
Empowerment Project
hukanifah@yahoo.com