Students with special needs want an all inclusive Education instead of being separated from their able bodied peers.
This was the findings of Radio Nigeria correspondent, who visited some of the schools for persons with special needs in Osun, Ondo and Ekiti States.
At the school located in Osogbo, Miss Kikelomo Hamzat, who is in the Secondary School session explained that isolating them from their able bodied counterparts make learning difficult and it makes them feel worthless as human beings.
Similarly, a visually impaired student at the Ekiti Government School for Persons with Disability, Miss Roseline Adedara said sometimes they need someone to explain to them some of the things hurriedly taught in class, but they find no one, since they all have similar challenges.
At the School for the Deaf in Akure, the Ondo State capital, a student who wrote his name on a paper as Kelechi Martins, wrote that being under the same learning environment with bodied students would enable them to know things happening in their environment.
A student of the College of Education, Special Oyo, Oyo state, Mr Oke Omoniyi recalled that the isolated life he lived through the primary and secondary schools affected his attitude to people at the tertiary level.
Speaking on the development, a teacher at the School for Special Persons in Ikere, Ekiti state, Mr Kayode Owolabi argued that integrating the pupils with Physical limitations into schools with able bodied mates would enhance their understanding of the society and also help the able bodied to understand the psychology of people with disabilities, thereby abolish the scourge of stigmatization.
Expressing similar view, the Osun State Chairman of the Nigeria Association of the Blind who is also a teacher in one of the Special Schools in the state, Mr Olufemi Stephen maintained that the practice of inclusive education at all levels across the states of the federation was the first step to prove that Nigeria was ready to eradicate all forms of discrimination and stigmatization.
A visually impaired legal practitioner who has special interest in the right of people with disabilities described the current practice of exclusive and integrated special education system, rather than the inclusive in most states as a violation of the Universal Basic Education law, the Nigeria constitution, the child Right Act and other international conventions which Nigeria ratified.
However, are the affected state governments disposed to implementing the all inclusive education system?
Alhaji Fatai Kolawole who is the Permanent Secretary at the Osun State Universal Basic Education Board, Osogbo, pledged that the government would commence the implementation by next academic session.
However, his counterpart in Ekiti Senator Bode Ola and that of Ondo state, Princess Oladunni Odu told Radio Nigeria that the policy would be in place, once the finances of their states improved.
However, a Former Vice Chancellor of the defunct University of Education, Ikere, Ekiti, Professor Akin Ogunlade who described the idea as the best approach to providing education for all Nigerians, maintained that the implementation was not only limited by inadequate fund but also lack of political will power.
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