Last weekend, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) in Nigeria, started the renovation of three schools to promote education for the physically challenged.
The decision was reached, when the FCT Committee on Inclusive Education Policy called on the FCT Minister, Muhammad Musa Bello, to update him on progress made.
A move like this is long overdue because every child and adult in Nigeria is supposed to have equal rights to quality education. In fact, the newspaper report referred to the students as disabled, a term which I find derogatory. Perhaps that has been the problem with special needs students; they have always been seen and treated as inferior to the physically fit in our schools.
It therefore gives one the impression that the physically challenged are segregated against due, to no fault of theirs. Even in the secular workplace, they suffer a neglect too. Most office buildings and schools do not have facilities for the physically challenged. You can therefore imagine their frustration when the have to attend classes in a school where a physically challenged child has to take four flight of stairs to get to his class.
Receiving the report from the team leader, Mrs. Ekaete Judith Umoh, the minister assured that the FCTA was working to incorporate into its building policy regulations that would ensure new public building approvals, particularly for educational facilities, meet the standard for accessibility by children with special needs.
Restricting this development to the FCT is a comic relief. Yes, how can we say we are developing when there are so many children who suffer from this problem in all the states but we restrict innovation to the FCT alone?
There should be proper legislation in place to ensure that every public school in the country is equipped with rest rooms, stairways, classrooms and dormitories as well as other facilities to make the school user-friendly to students with disabilities.
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