PAY MORE ATTENTION TO NEEDS OF TEACHERS IN SPECIAL SCHOOLS (SPREAD DEC 22)

Teachers of Twin-City Special School in Sekondi have appealed to the government to pay special attention to the needs of teachers of special schools in the country.
The head teacher of Twin-City Special School, Mrs Elizabeth Ameworwor, who made the call, said teachers in those special schools depended only on their salaries and had no other means of obtaining additional income and, therefore, they needed incentives to motivate them to do their best.
At a public forum organised by the Feed My Lambs Global Ministries and Calvary Overcomers Ministry to educate the public on the importance of caring for the mentally retarded, Mrs Ameworwor said by the nature of their work teachers of special schools were confined, and appeared to have been neglected.
“We act as the parents, nurses, educators, sisters, brothers and parents to the inmates so their biological parents could go about their duties. But there has not been any attention to plights of the inmates, teachers, and the facilities, especially those of us in the Western Region,” she said.
“It is sad that when we even requested for teachers under the national service scheme, our request was turned down. Because of the social stigma, the personnel did not want to associate themselves with the mentally retarded children,” she added.
Mrs Ameworwor said “even teachers who have accepted posting to the special school move to other schools within a shortest possible time”.
“That is because the opportunities outside the specials schools where teachers could organise extra classes or teach in private homes and make extra income are so real. Here at the special school, we give 100 per cent attention to the children, who through no fault of theirs are suffering from mental retardation,” she said.
She appealed to the government to give special package and if possible double pension to those who had accepted to sacrifice for the children.
The head teacher also hinted that if care was not taken and incentives introduced, there would not be many teachers to teach in those schools in future.
She used the opportunity to educate members of the general public on the possible causes of mental retardation and how women should take care of themselves during and after pregnancy to ensure that mental retardation was reduced if not eliminated completely.
Dr George Class-Peters of the Feed My Lambs Global Ministries and Calvary Overcomers Ministry said even though there was an attention for people with disability, there was the need for the establishment of an administrative body to ensure that they were properly taken care of.
He said his ministry would do everything possible to ensure that the voices of the disabled, especially the mentally retarded, were heard. “They are humans, Ghanaians for that matter, and they have the right to everything as we the so-called able-bodied are entitled to and it is our collective responsibility to ensure that life is made better for them,” he said.
Dr Class-Peters said it was important that society stopped perceiving people with disability as objects of pity and rather consider them as equal members of society.