Today January 24th is International Day of Education; Nigeria alongside 58 other states, co-authored the adoption of the resolution 73-25, which was geared at showing unwavering support for the political will, to support transformative actions for inclusive, equitable and quality education for all. This was adopted with consensus by the General Assembly on December 3, 2018.
The 6th iteration of the day is being celebrated under the theme “Learning for lasting piece”.
CCB-Eye Care Caribbean, urges education authorities across the Caribbean, to increase education opportunities, for the more than 168 thousand individuals with disabilities.
We note that, Children with special needs, are living with at least 13 disabling conditions including:
Autism Spectrum Disorder; Deaf-blindness, Deafness, Emotional disturbance; Hearing impairment; Intellectual Disability; Multiple Disabilities; Orthopaedic Impairment; Other Health Impairments; Specific Learning Disability; Speech or Language Impairment; Traumatic Brain Injury; Visual Impairment Including Blindness.
We are deeply concerned that there is a grave and growing shortage of special education teachers across the system. This intern, means that as many as 9 out of every 10 individual with special needs (of school age) may not be receiving appropriate attention, even if they are attending school.
According to the US National Center for Education, in 2019-2020, individuals between aged 3 and 23, who received special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was 7.3 million or 14% of all public-school students in the United States.
In the absence of primary or research data for the English-speaking Caribbean, and assuming that 20% of the region’s population is approximately 1.2 million individuals of school age, a crude estimate is that 14% or168,000 have special education needs.
Given the grave shortage of special education teachers, classroom facilities and specialized equipment; It is reasonable to assume service gaps of at least 90%, suggesting that close to 153,000 children with special education needs are not being served.
Our board and membership, urges education authorities and stakeholders, to recognize that there can be a huge difference bet ween attending school and receiving an education.
We are very concerned that, many children with disabilities may simply be helping governments achieve their much touted goal of approaching universal education. CCB-Eye Care Caribbean is concerned that, because of a grave shortage of special education teachers, many children with disabilities, may make-up the bottom 25 percentile of their classrooms. We know that, unless special needs children receive adequate education opportunities, they cannot (reasonably) be expected to make a sustainable contribution to “Lasting Peace”.
Instead, they could end-up being hapless pawns in the bigger game of organized crime and violence.