Special education unit in doldrums

1 September: The “special education unit” in Changangkha lower secondary school in Thimphu, set up to help physically and mentally disadvantaged children with special needs, is not as special as intended to be.

The unit, set up in 2003, today has 17 students with speech disorder, autism, Down’s syndrome, scoliosis, low vision and other physical disabilities, but it is reeling under pressure from a shortage of skilled teachers and overcrowded classrooms.
The students are clubbed together with others in overcrowded classes and are taught by teachers, who have insufficient training and skills to handle ‘children with special needs’.

“The main aim was to educate and prepare these children to face mainstream society, but we’re short of manpower and resources,” said vice principal and coordinator of the special education unit, Tshewang Rinzin. “We haven’t been able to designate trained teachers, who can give full attention to these students.”

The challenges are many, according to teachers. “In a class of more than 40 students, how can you expect a teacher trained for a general education classroom to coach children with special needs and teach the rest of the class at the same time?” said a teacher, who chose anonymity. She said that teachers are allotted less than an hour for each subject and handling a crowded classroom was already challenging. “The program has put greater pressure on regular teachers to improve students’ learning.”

Another teacher explained that, without professional skills, they use their emotions to deal with these children. For instance, the teacher said, when a disadvantaged child is not able to perform like the rest of the students during final exams, they promote them to a higher class because they want to be where their classmates are. “A special child in class III or IV sometimes has an IQ or cognitive level equivalent to that of a class 1 student,” she said. “We know the children face difficulties while learning but we’re unable to give them special attention to improve their test scores.”

Disadvantaged children, however, meet at least thrice a week for remedial classes in the ‘special education unit’ building. Most of the rooms in the building, however, remain underutilised and are used for storage.

Director of school education, Tshewang Tandin, said: “We’ve entered a speciliased and difficult area.” He said that the education ministry has dealt with the visible aspect of special education, such as for children with visual and hearing impairment, but challenges remain with Changangkha school, where teachers have to deal with everyone with various physical and mental disabilities.

The class size has to be reduced for teachers to attend more to students with special needs and teachers need training, not just short-term workshops, said another teacher. “There are people in education ministry, who have master’s in special education and we don’t know where they are or what they’re doing,” she said.

Changangkha school has about 45 teachers and about 30 sections of classrooms. “Both teachers and disabled students are under a lot of pressure to help these students cope academically as well as socially,” said a teacher. “The situation might improve when we have trained full-time teachers.”

source: kuensel