Globally, countries and sub-national governments are adopting an educational strategy that accommodates all categories of learners in an inclusive and individualised manner to harness the potential of learners with disabilities. In this report, NCHETACHI CHUKWUAJAH writes that the slow pace of the implementation of the Oyo State inclusive education policy poses a great concern to the enrolment level and learning outcomes of learners with disabilities.
The journey to HLA Special Basic School, Agodi Gate, Ibadan, a school for learners with disabilities, located 1.3km away from the Oyo State Government House, was not an easy one. The road leading to the school was ridden with uneven bumps, made worse by gullies created by run-off rainwater. It is best left to the imagination how pupils with visual impairment or mobility disabilities would smoothly navigate the terrain.
After stopping many times to ask for directions, this reporter would find the school tucked in a gated compound behind three other schools, as though being hidden from the world.
Mr Michael Adebola, in his 40s, and his wife alternately use this road daily to take their 15-year-old son with learning disability to the school. He was seen walking closely beside his son, the first of three children, guiding him to carefully walk across a metal bridge covering a canal and other bumps.
Adebola told Nigerian Tribune that though he has not seen any improvement in the learning facilities in the school, he is glad his son has learnt to write in the few years he has spent in the school.
“Since I started bringing my child here, I have noticed some changes. He didn’t know how to write before but now he knows how to write. I have not seen any change in the school environment,” Adebola said.
Like Adebola, parents of most learners with disabilities, estimated to be 1.3 billion or 16 percent of the world’s population, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and 93 to 150 million of whom are said to be children under the age of 14 find it difficult locating a suitable learning environment for their children, coupled with the challenge of stigmatisation, discrimination and the burden of caring for them.
The Oyo State government, in its bid to ensure an inclusive yet individualised learning environment for the over 3,139 learners with disabilities in the state’s primary and secondary schools, announced an ambitious inclusive education policy. It aims to have regular learners and learners with disabilities in the same learning environment.
The policy also provides that the 37 special needs schools in the state will be equipped with necessary facilities and learning aids, while teachers and other personnel are regularly trained on the best practices in teaching learners with disabilities.
In fact, the government said it “has upgraded the learning aids in special schools in Oyo State to meet global best standards and distributed needed equipment among learners with Special Education Needs and Disability” to enhance the quality of education of learners with disabilities in the state.
On the back of this assertion, Nigerian Tribune visited HLA Special Basic School, Agodi. However, the school’s headmistress, Mrs Elizabeth Adewale, declined comments, insisting that this reporter should get a letter from the Ibadan North Local Government Education Authority permitting her to speak to the press.
This reporter then visited the LGEA office, was directed to the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board (Oyo SUBEB) and asked to provide a letter requesting permission to interview the board’s chairman and teachers. A letter to this effect, dated November 16, 2023, was submitted to the board’s chairman’s office on November 17, 2023 and received by the chairman’s secretary.
However, as of the time of filing this report, no action has been taken on the letter. Also, several calls and text messages sent to the telephone number of the then-acting chairman of the board, Mr Oladimeji Raji, were not responded to as of the time of filing this report.
Understaffed Community Special Basic School at Oke-Ora
Despite the boisterous noise of people going about their daily activities within the vicinity on a sunny Thursday morning, the Community Special Basic School, Oke-Ora, Ogbomoso is, in contrast, quiet; the only noise being that of teachers conversing or calling out to each other.
As one approaches one of the three blocks of classrooms that formed an inverted ‘U’ facing the entrance gate, three female pupils in brown-check school uniforms follow the gesture of one of the teachers to help with this reporter’s bag. They would go on to ‘say’ their welcome.
Nigerian Tribune found that it only admits pupils with hearing impairments, speech impairments, learning disabilities and intellectual disabilities. It caters only to day pupils as there were no boarding facilities which impacts the number of pupils admitted to the school.
It was also observed that there were inadequate learning aids, such as hearing aids, for the pupils. While there are those whose parents or guardians may be able to afford these aids, those who cannot learn without experiencing what it means to hear a sound.
However, the school compound, though not cement-floored, had a level topography, which allows pupils and teachers, some of whom are visually and hearing impaired, to walk around easily. The school also had good sanitary facilities like toilets, bathrooms, and a functional borehole with an overhead tank. It also had a farm behind the classroom blocks where the pupils, under the supervision of their teachers, plant and learn basic farming skills.
Apart from the challenge of stigmatisation, which discourages parents and guardians of children with disabilities from bringing them to school, it was observed that there were inadequate special education teachers and other trained personnel to care for the pupils.
Unlike the three to 10 special needs students, a special education teacher, and a paraprofessional recommended for a typical specialised education classroom, the Community Basic School typically has at least 10 pupils per teacher.
“We don’t have enough teachers. We are expecting the government to give us more teachers because one child with disability is equal to seven children. So, to handle up to 10 children in a class is quite challenging. That is like having 70 children in a class and that is too much for just one teacher because we handle them one by one. Their abilities are different; one can learn more quickly than others, so you have to teach them at their pace.
“Teaching special needs children is like a ministry; it requires determination and compassion. Many of us want to leave this place because it is too stressful and there is no helping hand. The children can mess up themselves and the teacher is expected to clean them up. What can we do? We fast, pray over them, and ask God to have mercy and teach these our children.
“We have complained and requested more teachers but nothing has happened. Last term, there was no teacher to teach those in nursery one. I am just praying to God to teach them because all those things they were supposed to know, they missed because there was no teacher and when they get to a new class, they will have to start all over,” one of the teachers said.
On the aspect of personnel to teach and care for learners with disabilities, the Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Abdulwaheed Salihu, said the ministry prioritises the capacity building of teachers, as special education teachers are regularly funded to go for trainings, which are complemented by those offered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
This was corroborated by the teacher at Community Special Basic School, who said: “I learnt sign language from SPED (Federal College of Education, Special, Oyo) so that I can teach the children better.
“Some teachers don’t like to teach in this type of school, but if the government can add something to the salary of teachers in special needs schools to attract them, some may come.”
Hearing aids needed at Oyo special school
The atmosphere at Oyo Special Basic School, Durbar, Oyo, was boisterous as the pupils were engaged in extracurricular activities within the large expanse of the school’s compound just before noon on a bright Friday morning.
As the pupils, dressed in green-check school gowns for females and checked shirts and blue shorts for males, moved from one activity to the other, the teachers were seen attending to those who needed care or chattering among themselves.
At the headmistress’ office, Nigerian Tribune inquired about the requirements for registering a hearing-impaired pupil in the school. Among the items required were two school uniforms, a pair of sandals, a pair of white socks, a copy of the pupil’s birth certificate, two passport-sized photographs, and N1,100 – for two school badges at N200 each, N200 for pupil’s file and N500 for Parents Teachers Association (PTA) fee.
It was observed that the school had trained special education teachers who catered to pupils with different disabilities including visual and hearing impairments, learning and intellectual disabilities, and those with speech disabilities.
The headmistress, who identified herself as Mrs Amao BJ, said, “All our teachers are trained on how to teach and care for special needs children.”
Speaking of his experience, a father of a special needs child in the school said, “The teachers are trying. They teach them sign language, how to read with Braille and to speak too. It is a gradual process.”
However, like Community Special Basic School, Oke-Ora, Oyo Special Basic School, Durbar, has inadequate learning aids for the pupils. When this reporter suggested getting a hearing aid for the supposed hearing-impaired child, Mrs Amao said “You can get it for her and use it at home. We make use of it here but we don’t have enough.”
Lack of facilities for PWDs attending regular schools
Ogbomoso Grammar School, Ogbomoso, with its neat and cosy school compound adorned with various flowers and trees and well-arranged classroom blocks and other buildings, is a welcoming sight and mirrors an inclusive learning environment.
Most of the school’s expansive compound is tarred, which allows teachers and students, in their smart-looking white shirts and sky-blue skirts, trousers or shorts, to move about smoothly.
It was found that the school only admits students with hearing impairments who are taught simultaneously as regular learners by special teachers using sign language. Though the students were not seen making use of hearing aids or other assistive devices, the special teachers, numbering about six, were always on-hand to interpret whatever lesson was being taught.
Nigerian Tribune also gathered that the special teachers were trained and posted to the school by the state government.
The school principal, Dr Adewumi, said, “We only admit the hearing impaired here. Though we don’t have hearing aids for them, we have special teachers that use sign language to teach them.”
Dr Adewumi referred Nigerian Tribune to Adeniran Memorial School, Ogbomoso, when inquiries were made about a school for a visually-impaired student.
It was gathered that new students pay up to N7,000, which covers transfer fees and other fees, while returning students pay N700 per session for security and PTA fees.
The large tree roots that intertwine to form roadblocks within the compound are the distinctive feature of St. Louis Grammar School, Mokola, Ibadan. Aside from the driveway, most of the school compound is not tarred, hilly, and decorated by large tree roots.
Nigerian Tribune found that the only-girls school lacked the facilities to cater to students with disabilities.
A staff of the school in charge of admission and registration of students, identified simply as Mr Akinwale said, “There is no provision for someone that is using (a) stick here. There is a special school for them called Sosanya, along Poly Road. It is also a government school. Assuming she is not using (a) stick, I would say I can still see how she can fit in because we have one or two here. Go to Sosanya because their own principal is visually impaired too. We can’t take her here; I have to tell you the truth.
“We have a hostel here. There was a girl who came for the boarding house exam but we couldn’t take her because we don’t have facilities for such.
“If it is a situation where I can help, I will do it. After all, you are going to pay because admission is not free; you will pay almost N25,000 or N30,000. Though government schools don’t charge any fees, when you are coming in, you will pay for some things like a transfer form, which costs N10,000, school uniforms, cardigans, and other things.”
The fees being asked for at St Louis Grammar School contradict the state government’s position on school fees payment as it has cancelled payment of school fees in government-owned schools since 2019.
At Alaafin High School, Oyo, Nigerian Tribune was told that there were no provisions to accommodate students with disabilities and was instead told to visit a secondary school for students with disabilities at Durbar.
Why inclusive education?
Inclusive education is the thrust of many international conventions on inclusive society, including Goal 4 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its optional protocol adopted on December 13, 2006 and ratified by 185 state parties including Nigeria.
These policies and conventions recommend that countries should integrate inclusive education within the general education system to harness the learning potential of learners with disabilities, maintaining that children with disabilities have the right to access free primary and secondary education. Achieving this also requires making changes to school curricula, infrastructure, pedagogical methods, and legal frameworks among others.
The UN Division for Social Policy and Development listed other requirements to include: accessibility of all schools both physically and regarding information and communication; students with disabilities should receive reasonable accommodations within the classroom; schools should address the academic, social, and life skills needs of each student; if needed, alternative learning methods should be used, such as Braille instruction or alternative communication devices; local sign language instruction should be provided for students who are hearing-impaired to promote linguistic identity; individuals with disabilities should have access to tertiary, vocational, and adult education.
In line with this, the Nigerian government recognised and adopted inclusive education through such policies as the National Policy on Special Needs Education of 2015, the National Policy on Inclusive Education of 2017, some sections of the Child Rights Act of 2018 and the 2014 Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Policy on Inclusive Education.
Apart from restating the rights of persons with disabilities to quality education, the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities Prohibition Act, 2018 also stipulates that all public buildings, including schools, churches, parks and automobiles, must be equipped with mobility and assistive devices like ramps, elevators and so on, for easy access by persons with disabilities. It gives a five-year transitional window for the modification of public places to be accessible to persons with disabilities.
Implementing an inclusive and/or individualised education plan ensures that learners with disabilities are given the opportunity to catch up with their peers at their pace. “Some students require specialised instruction for them to make progress and close the gap in their education. Without this specialised instruction, they could potentially fall further behind their peers,” said Dr Laurie HC Philipps and Associates of NeuroHealth Arlington Heights.
This is also the position of Ms Folusho Liasu, founder of Super Parents Foundation, an NGO that provides support and advocacy for parents of and persons with disabilities. She noted that without inclusion, more children with disabilities will drop out of school while inclusive learning will not only help learners with disabilities adjust to leading normal lives, but also help regular learners to develop empathy and other positive behavioural attitudes towards persons with disabilities.
“Apart from the advantage it (inclusive education) gives to special needs children, children without disabilities are able to adapt, accept and grow empathy towards children with disabilities; they don’t look at them as strange. These are the children that will become medical doctors, welfare officers, etc and because they have the knowledge of special needs, they are able to help these children who have become adults with special needs in future. So, it is a win-win for everybody,” Liasu said.
Around the world, the majority of out-of-school children live with a disability, while less than 10 percent of all children with disabilities under the age of 14 are attending school, according to the World Bank. It added that this trajectory will hurt the economies of families, communities, and countries, maintaining that denying children with disabilities an education can “become the most challenging impediment to earning an income and long-run financial health as adults.”
The World Bank, however, noted that while there is a positive wage return on education for children with disabilities, excluding them from education and ultimately the labour market costs countries three to seven percent of their Gross Domestic Product.
Oyo State inclusive education policy
The Oyo State inclusive education policy may be said to have gained momentum following an appeal made in June 2020 by a citizen of the state, Mr Adetayo Adekunle, who argued that naming schools as belonging to the handicapped, blind, deaf and so on, was derogatory and discriminatory.
Following the appeal, the government renamed 19 of such schools in 2021 and stated that it was part of its efforts to ensure an inclusive learning environment for all learners in Oyo State without segregation, discrimination or stigmatisation.
The policy also became necessary because of the increasing number of out-of-school children in the state, which stood at over 400,000 as at 2019, and children with disabilities being in the majority. Out of this number, the government said it reinstated 60,000 in the three years between 2019 and 2022, promising to mop up the over 1.5 million remnants of out-of-school children absorbed into various public schools under the 2017-2022 Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) back to school under the BESDA-Additional Funding-Transforming Education System at State level programme.
The government also established the Oyo State Agency for Persons With Disabilities in 2022 to work with other ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to cater to the needs of persons with disabilities in the state.
The journey so far
Aside from the renaming of schools and intermittent provision of learning aids to special schools, it appears that the Oyo State inclusive education policy has not been fully actualised. This is evident in the poor state of special schools in the state, as well as inadequate teaching staff and facilities to aid learning for learners with disabilities.
Also, since the policy proposes that regular schools will be equipped with facilities to accommodate all categories of learners, not much of this has been achieved as most of the regular schools visited lack facilities to accommodate learners with disabilities.
Of note, however, is the increased budgetary allocation to the state’s Ministry of Education since 2020, and consistently meeting UNESCO’s recommendation of governments to allocate between 15 to 20 percent of their annual budgets to the education sector.
In the 2020 budget of the state, education was allocated N47 billion, which is 22 percent of the year’s N213 billion budget. In the N266.6 billion 2021 budget, N56.3 billion was allocated to education. Though the amount is N9.3 billion higher than the ministry’s budget in 2020, it is 21 percent of 2021 budget.
The amount allocated to the sector decreased in 2022 to N54.1 billion, representing 18.37 percent of the state’s N294.5 billion budget for the year. In 2023, the sector saw a N4 billion increase from the previous year’s budget. It was allocated N58.2 billion, representing 18.78 percent of the N310.4 billion budget for the year.
Education saw a massive allocation to the tune of N90.6 billion in the 2024 budget of the state. Though the amount is N32.4 billion higher than the 2023 allocation, it represents 20.8 percent of the state’s N434.2 billion budget.
Professor Salihu told Nigerian Tribune that the ministry first conducted enumeration, profiling, and needs assessment research of special schools in the state to determine areas of intervention in keeping with the inclusive education thrust of the government.
He added that the assessment research led to the increased budgetary allocation to the sector in the state’s 2024 budget.
“Sometime before I assumed office, the government of Governor Seyi Makinde conducted needs assessment research to identify where there are infrastructural gaps. This needs assessment research has identified, both for the conventional schools and the special schools, based on what we are seeing and considering the net present value of our currency and other economic indices, the government is looking forward to allocating close to N70 billion to fix the infrastructural gaps in the education industry in Oyo State.
“When I came on board, I visited virtually all our special schools. We inspected their hostel facilities, we looked into the number of classrooms because theirs is special, and you classify them based on impairment. All these things were recorded and we are looking forward to a fruitful 2024,” Professor Salihu said.
The commissioner also said the state government is partnering the Federal Government and development partners on other areas of needs of special schools in the state, to reduce the number of out-of-school children in the state, the majority being children with disabilities.
“Oyo has equally signed up to a World Bank’s Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) programme. We are looking at how to collaborate on that to bring one or two things to the table.
“Before the coming on board of the present administration, data showed that Oyo State had the highest number of out-of-school children, including people with disabilities. But during the first term, 15 percent of these children were moved back to school. In the roadmap to sustainable development, we are looking forward to sustaining all these achievements. The plan is to reduce the number by five percent. The school feeding programme is equally helping along that line,” Professor Salihu said.
This report was facilitated by the Africa Centre for Development Journalism (ACDJ) as part of its 2023 Inequalities Reporting Fellowship supported by the MacArthur Foundation through the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.
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