Schools For Special Needs Halt Enrolment Due To Poor Facilities In Osun
- As Authority Accuses Parents Of Abandoning Children During Holidays
Some schools for persons with special needs in Osun State have reportedly stopped enrolment of students as a result of poor facilities, OSUN DEFENDER reports.
Findings by the medium revealed that facilities across the nine special needs schools across the state are in deplorable conditions with the government not forthcoming with promises to fix the problem.
The problem in some of the schools ranges from lack of interpreters for the deaf students, brain machine, talking calculator, digital radio for students to record and guide cane for mobility and orientation.
OSUN DEFENDER gathered that facilities in the special needs school in Osogbo are in poor state. The premises is unkept with a bushy environment and uncompleted perimeter fence. Poor toilet and hostel facilities and leaking roofs among other things.
At Baptist Grammar School, Iwo, it was learnt that they are in need of about six interpreters but have two available. The two were reportedly employed individuals.
Meanwhile, there are complains that parents are now abandoning their children in the schools especially during holiday, a situation that has led to the congestion in the school hostels.
Reacting to the development, a non governmental organisation, One House Initiative has called for the upgrade of facilities, recruitment of teachers and provision of equipment for special needs schools in the state.
According to the Team Lead of the organisation, One House Development Initiative, Tunbosun Olabomi, most of the schools do not have enough facilities, hostel rooms.
Olabomi noted that some of the classrooms in schools have been converted into hostels.
“At the last time we checked, one of the classrooms in the special needs school in Osogbo has been converted into hostel for the students and that also is jampacked. It was also learnt that most of special needs students who are supposed to be in school are not able to because the schools are not allowing new intakes.
“Another issue we have is about the upcoming external examinations. The state should start preparing and working towards next year’s WAEC/NECO CBT by making available necessary equipment so our students will not be stranded and mess our results up as a state,” Olabomi said.
OSUN DEFENDER learnt that nothing has been done to fix the poor facilities a month after the chairman, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Hon. Ibukun Fadipe promised that the facilities have been approved for renovation by the state government.
Fadipe made the promise during a visit to the special needs school in Osogbo for assessment.
Yusuf Oketola is a trained journalist with over five years of experience in the media industry. He has worked for both print and online medium. He is a thorough-bred professional with an eye of hindsight on issues bothering on social justice, purposeful leadership, and a society where the leaders charge and work for the prosperity of the people.
