May 30, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13, 1428

MUZAFFARGARH, May 29: It seems people without any vision have been tasked with running the affairs of special education institutions if the condition of special education schools in Muzaffargarh is to be believed.

Dawn visited special education centres in Muzaffargarh district and saw how the lives of disabled children are being ruined at the hands of senior officials of Special Education Department.

There are four special education schools located in Alipur, Muzaffargarh, Jatoi and Kot Addu. A report by the District Monitoring Team of Muzaffargarh has pointed out lack of staff, facilities, equipment, transport and professionalism in these schools.

Eighty-seven physically and mentally challenged children are admitted to the Special Education School of Muzaffargarh. According to the report, the school has been facing shortage of teachers for the last three years and there is no audiologist to rehabilitate children with acoustic problems.

The government promises a healthy lunch for the students of special schools but the facility has not been given to the students in the Muzaffargarh Special Education School.

The Kot Addu Special Education School has only two teachers for its 63 students. Four seats of teachers have been lying vacant for years. The school is being run without any principal. Teachers use conventional methods to teach physically and mentally impaired children. Audio and video teaching aids have never been used in classrooms and are lying packed and safe in the storeroom. Students have never enjoyed recesses as there is no playground in the school.

The report says that a six-hour continuous sitting on a chair will leave adverse effects on the health of physically or mentally impaired student. There is no parking place of the school bus and most of time it is broken. This brings a break time for the students as whenever the school bus is broken, the school is closed. And it happens often.

In Alipur Special Education School, 110 children are enrolled and four seats of teachers are lying vacant.

The school bus has been out of order for the last 10 months and parents have to drop and pick their children. According to reports, the government has not provided uniforms to the students and parents have been asked to arrange this too. The school has been set up in a building borrowed form the Alipur Tehsil Municipal Corporation.

There also exists the Jatoi Special Education School, if you call it a school as the school has no staff and no building. The school has a strength of 51 students who are taught in two rooms of Sardar Kauray Khan Public School.

But who teaches them?

Luckily, there is a peon at the Kauray Khan School who is fond of teaching. This

grade-four employee, whose name is not mentioned in the report, has assumed the delicate job of “teaching, facilitating, training, educating and everything what comes under the profession of pedagogy” to the children with special needs.

The school, which has no building and no staff, has been given one bus.

The government, however, forgot to appoint any driver for it. The bus can be seen parked in the Kauray Khan Public School. The peon-turned-teacher brings physically and mentally disabled children to the bus and asks them to push it for a few yards so that its wheels are not rusted.

After getting the bus pushed, he asks children to get on the bus and enjoy its motionless ride. After a 10-minute or so of “still” ride, children come down of the bus and go to their classrooms.

As the physically and mentally challenged children have been accommodated in the world of normal children’s school, they are treated with disdain by “normal” children and their parents and teachers. According to the report, “normal people” pass remarks like “ Wooh behra baccha (Look, here is a deaf child)”, “Oye Undhay (Hey, you blind)”, and “Lungray (you limping child)”. The parents of normal children say that the presence of the special children has left adverse effects on their children.

The report says that special education schools do not differentiate among physically-impaired and mentally retarded children. The report said physically-impaired children just needed education and rehabilitation but mentally-impaired children needed medical treatment and also special education and rehabilitation.

The report said 100 mentally retarded children are studying in the four special education schools of Muzaffargarh and their integration with physically-impaired children can affect both of them.

District Monitoring Team Officer Syed Naveed Alam Shah said the report had been compiled in one year and had been sent to the secretary of special education. He said the government had asked to select land for constructing special education school buildings in Alipur and Jatoi.

Executive District Officer (Community Development) Malik Khair Muhammad said the lack of funds had made it difficult for them to provide lunch and uniform to the students. He said this year the funds had been arranged and uniform and lunch was being provided to all the students.

He said the government had bought the land for the Alipur and Jatoi special education schools. He said he had informed senior officials about the shortage of staff many a times but nothing had been done.