AMMAN — A study published by the Jordanian Coalition for Education shows that most
public schools in less privileged areas lack the infrastructure needed by students
with disabilities.
اضافة اعلان
“Rented schools, particularly, are not prepared to
receive students with disabilities, which affects the possibility of having
inclusive learning,” the study said.
The
Ministry of Education’s Director of Buildings
and International Projects Ibraheem Al-Samamah told
Jordan News that
rented schools were not meant to be a permanent solution, noting that the
ministry is working on a 10-year plan to replace these schools with new
establishments owned by the government that can accommodate students with
disabilities, thus becoming inclusive.
“Out of 4,004 public schools 750 are rented; in 10
years, we will be able to replace them all,” Samamah said.
Rented schools were not built to be schools in the
first place, he said, but “whenever the ministry becomes aware that there are
students with disabilities, they work together with the lessor to make them as
suitable as possible for them”.
The new schools have to accommodate all types of
disabilities, said Samamah, adding that “many of the current schools are
inclusive and the process of making them more suitable is never ending”.
Saleh Al-Omari, head of the Irbid Education
Directorate, told
Jordan News that “we have four schools suitable to
receive students with disabilities; two are inclusive, two are special schools
for students with specific disabilities, like vision impairment, or deaf or
hard of hearing”.
“In the Ministry of Education’s plan, 10 inclusive
schools are to be inaugurated in the upcoming years; three of them will be
built in Irbid,” Omari said.
According to the Jordanian Coalition for Education
study, “another issue is that teachers lack social awareness when it comes to
accepting differences, which makes it harder to accept children with
disabilities”.
Omari said that “the ministry does hold training
programs frequently for teachers who deal directly with students with
disabilities, especially in inclusive schools”.
The study also said that overcrowdedness is “an
important issue that affects the learning outcome in public schools”.
At the same time, “children from lower-income
households are less likely to attend school due to the indirect costs, like
uniforms and transportation”, the study also showed.
Teachers were not spared, either. The study noted that 62.9
percent of the participants attributed public school students’ poor performance
to the lack of proper teachers training.
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