On 5 August 2012, the Prime Minister approved the scheme to support people with disabilities for 2012 – 2020. It states the target that by 2015 at least 60% of children with disabilities would have access to education. However, given the poor facilities and inconsistent curricula, many people worry that this target will be hard to achieve.
A street-front house, classes of over a hundred
Reporting at the conference to review the 2012 – 2013 school year and implement the disability education plan for special schools in the 2013 – 2014 school year, recently organised by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, Ms Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Deputy Head of the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee on Disability Education, said: “In the 2012 – 2013 school year, the whole city had 25 special schools, taking in more than 2,700 students with disabilities in the city. Many of them have seriously deteriorated facilities, such as in District 5 and Cu Chi and Can Gio districts. Schools have been converted from street houses, are small in scale, have cramped playgrounds and lack functional rooms”.
Take, for example, Tuong Lai Special School (District 3), where the psychomotor room (a type of functional room for restoring life skills for children with disabilities – reporter) is less than 20 sq m. Ms Do Thi Phuong Nga, Vice Principal in charge of teaching at the school, said: “Because the area is cramped and does not meet the professional requirements for pupils’ movement, we have to make use of part of the main hall corridor to increase the training area for the children”.
The gate of Hy Vong Special Education School (Go Vap district) is obscured by a business selling flowers, ornamental plants and fertiliser.
In addition, also because of difficulties with facilities, many places have to share space with local households. Mr V.M.K, a parent looking for a special school for his child in Go Vap district, said: “I found out about it online, and after walking and asking for directions several times I finally found campus 2 of Hy Vong Special Education School, Go Vap district”. The reason is that the school gate has been obscured by a business selling flowers, ornamental plants and fertiliser. If you are not paying attention, it is hard for a parent to recognise that this is a school for children with disabilities.
Similarly, following a recommendation from an acquaintance, we visited Niem Tin Special School (Phu Nhuan district). The school lies hidden deep at the end of an alley less than 2 m wide. The premises have been converted from an old two-storey house, with no playground. Outside, the school’s name board is hidden behind the foliage of a neighbour’s tree. A parent whose child studies there said: “Apart from drop-off and pick-up times, the school gate is closed tight for the rest of the day. Most parents, after dropping their children off here, turn their bikes around and leave straight away; there is no scene of laughing and chatting as at other ordinary schools”.
The paradox of quality and quantity
Demand for places for children with disabilities is growing, while the number of special schools is not only failing to increase but is at risk of falling. Faced with this, many parents who cannot find a place for their children have joined together to open private schools to “save themselves”. Examples include Tuoi Ngoc and Khai Tri special schools (Binh Thanh district), Anh Vuong (Tan Binh district), Niem Tin (Phu Nhuan district) and Hoang Mai (Go Vap)… However, even with private schools coming to the rescue, in some districts such as District 9 and Hoc Mon there is still no special school. Parents who need a place for their child have to go to neighbouring districts to find one.
The principal of a special school said: “The cost of opening a school and keeping it running is not small these days. That is not to mention the huge sums needed to invest in building functional rooms. Without additional support from the state budget, in the long run I fear schools will struggle”. The evidence is that at present, many places have to put children with different types of disability together in the same class.
Ms Tran Thi Hong Van, Principal of Rang Dong Special Education School (Binh Chanh district), said that because conditions are still very difficult, the school has to place pupils with many different types of disability, ages and levels together in the same class. This affects teaching quality to some extent. Learning from experience, in the 2013 – 2014 school year, the school divided pupils into 3 classes: a class for children with intellectual developmental delays, a class for children with hearing impairments, and a class for deaf children.
Explaining this, Mr Nguyen Thanh Tam, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Centre for Supporting Inclusive Education Development for People with Disabilities, said: “Children with each type of disability need their own lesson plans and interventions to restore their life skills. In principle, each special class should have only one type of disability. Putting many different disabilities together in one class will tire teachers out, as they cannot look after and train each child well”.
However, with the number of special schools still far too small, admitting each group of disabilities separately would force children with other disabilities to go to other districts to find a school. The goal of improving quality would invisibly cause numbers to fall. But if quantity is chased, the children’s road back to an ordinary life is stretched even longer. How to resolve the balance between quantity and quality, while avoiding a situation where there are no special schools at all in the city’s 24 districts, is a major problem facing education managers. Among these, policies to support and invest in land and infrastructure for special schools need to be given top priority.
THU TAM – http://sggp.org.vn