By Albert Futukpor, GNA
Tamale, July 25, GNA – A capacity building workshop on the Inclusive Education (IE) Policy has been held for stakeholders in the sector to make them conversant with the IE Policy to help in advocacy efforts at ensuring an inclusive society especially at basic schools.
The two-day workshop, which ended in Tamale on Thursday, was attended by civil society organisations (CSOs) in education, media practitioners and representatives of some teacher unions drawn from the five regions of the north.
It was organised by the Northern Network for Education Development (NNED) as part of its implementation of the Promoting Inclusive Education in Northern Ghana (PIE-Ghana) project, which is sponsored by the German Development Cooperation.
The project’s focus is to improve government’s priority on inclusive education by stimulating government’s response to issues affecting Special Education Needs learners.
Mr Ayuba Abukari, Head of Programmes at NNED, who spoke during the workshop in Tamale, emphasised the need for stakeholders to increase their advocacy activities to ensure government lived up to its commitment to improving access to inclusive education in the country.
The government has enacted the Education Act (2008), Act 778, as well as developed the IE Policy 2015-2020, Education Strategic Plan 2018-2030 and ratified a number of international conventions, which outlined measures to ensure amongst others, improved access to education for persons with disabilities (PwDs), the vulnerable and the talented.
However, government’s commitment to improving inclusive education in terms of provision of disability-friendly facilities had not been the best, a situation, which presents challenges to PwDs in their quest to access education in the country.
Mr Abukari bemoaned government’s commitment to promoting inclusive education in the country, calling on stakeholders in the sector to take up issues of inclusive education to help reverse the trend.
Mr Auberon Jeleel Odoom, National Coordinator, Inclusion Ghana, called on government to invest more resources into inclusive education by providing disability-friendly infrastructure and age appropriate desks to ensure increased access to education for PwDS.
Madam Felicia Owusu, Northern Regional Special Education Coordinator, who made a presentation on the IE Policy, lauded CSOs for their efforts at improving inclusive education in the country, appealing to them to do more in the area of infrastructure provision to complement government’s efforts in that regard.
