Over one billion people live with some form of disability worldwide, according to United Nations PHOTO: FILE
Talking to The Express Tribune, Punjab University Department of Special Education Head Dr Humara Bano said the major challenge facing the country was to bring children with special needs to schools. “Around 96% of special children are out of school, whereas the rest of the 4% are mostly enrolled in segregated schools.”
Int’l commitments
A total of 153 countries signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Pakistan signed CRPD on September 25, 2008 and ratified it on July 5, 2011. According to the UN, “This year’s objectives include assessing the current status of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and SDGs and laying the foundation for a future of greater inclusion for persons with disabilities”.
Provincial Performance
Breaking down the progress made on education for the disabled in Pakistan, Dr Bano said that Punjab had been the most successful in the country. She said the province has seen success in implementing inclusive pilot projects in two districts and was successful in getting its enrolment targets. For Sindh, she said the province was in the process of devising laws for inclusive education, while NGOs in the province were doing the most work. As far as K-P was concerned, Dr Bano said the challenge was infrastructure and the province was trying to get special children in segregated schools.
Punjab’s newly-appointed Special Education Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Shafique told The Express Tribune that the Punjab government had started projects for the education of children with disabilities. “The provincial government is focused on the welfare of special children and wants to make them a productive part of society. For this, education has been given a priority. Teachers training programmes are being carried out and psychologists are hired to cater to the needs of special children.”
On the question of inclusive education, the minister said that two centers in Bahawalpur and Muzaffargarh had been set up where 1,000 special children were receiving education alongside other children of the area. He said that similar programmes would be started in other parts of the province in the coming years.
Lack of data
There are no exact figures available on the number of people or children with disabilities in the country. According to the website of the Punjab Special Education Department, around 28,850 children with disabilities are studying in government-run institutions in Punjab.
Ghazali Education Trust (GET) Executive Director Syed Aamir Jaffri said that the biggest problem facing the organisations working for inclusive education was that of data. “There is no exact data available, so we have to work based on limited information.”
Jaffri stresses on the need to increase awareness. “People should start at home,” he advises. He also thinks that there was a lack of focus on the disabled and the responsibility rested on the shoulders of the state.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2016.
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