Dr.Jonas Chanda, MP for Bwana Mkubwa this morning lobbied Parliament for children with special needs to access education services.
Hon Chanda is an advocate for good educational services for children with “special needs” such as blindness, deafness, mental and physical incapacitation or disability.
He lobbied government for an “inclusive model” which creates separate classes for children with special needs, or integrates those children with special needs who can cope in other classes. Chipata Open Day Community School in Lusaka’s Chipata compound has an “inclusive model” for children with special needs which can be adapted by Ministry of General Education for government schools.
“An inclusive model is better and more humane than building separate “special schools” in distant places which are inaccessible by the children and their parents/guardians,” Dr.Chanda said.
Dr.Chanda also lobbied government to train more specialised teachers for children with special needs.
He commend the Zambia Open Community Schools (ZOCS) and Zambia Agency of People with Disabilities for supporting educational needs for children with special needs.
We need to more for the disadvantaged in society who have next to nothing but right now priorities seem only to be with buying latest luxury SUVs to drive across potholed roads which ordinary poor Zambians have to be subjected to despite paying everyday taxes, napsa, customs duty, toll gates, council levies etc etc Such a very sad situation.
Our social ‘net’ for vulnerable people is non-existent. More can and should be done. We ignore or leave people with special needs at the boundary of our
society – only remembering them on days of ‘commemoration’
Very important point raised Dr chanda, i personally support especially children with disabilities but quite sad that we can only do so much, am sure and know we can do better than we doing now, I hope you as an MP your word can be taken more seriously.