Article/ Feature

09/June/2011

Education for all: disability in our inability to provide

By: Clarence KIPOBOTA (Advocate)*

“The community is now receptive of our condition, yet one has to do more than normal ways could provide in order to reach where I am now,” said one of my good friends, a visually impaired lawyer. He is one of few persons with disabilities who have managed to make it up to the university level.

The magnitude of discrimination and other forms of mistreatment against persons with disabilities (PWDs) is apparently decreasing at least in some of the places. Obviously, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the government are doing a good job to reform the ill-mindset of the people, which is rooted in some of the harmful traditional practices.

In the past some of the members of my community used to spit saliva on their stomachs inside their shirts or gowns when they intersected an albino along the way in order to ‘avoid bearing an albino.’ Some of the communities threw away children who born lame because they were ‘outcast.’ The myth did not spare other forms of ‘abnormalities.’ For instance, twins were also ‘jinx’ according to some members of other societies.

Despite this notable positive progress reached so far, more is desirable to make this world and in particular Tanzania a safe and convenient place for everyone regardless of deformity or any other reason. We are equal but different in terms of sex, gender, morphology and so many other reasons. Disability is one of them.       

The global statistics show that, there are approximately 650 million people in the world who are living with disabilities. Therefore, about 10 per cent of the world’s populations are PWDs. Out of the said number, 80 percent of PWDs live in developing countries.

As for Tanzania in particular, the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labour Organization (ILO)’s reports of 2007 estimated that there were more than 3 million people in Tanzania who have disability. Probably the number is still the same. The number includes both physical and mental disabilities.

Therefore, a number is big enough to justify earnest attention and protection. Note that, even if could have been 0.1 percent, still the justification could have been the same because human rights protection is blind of numbers. 

Reports and experience show that people with disabilities often face mistreatments in a number of ways and because of various reasons. For instance, according to Legal and Human Rights Centre’s Report (Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2008), the World Bank has estimated that, 20% of the most impoverished individuals are disabled.

Evidently, women and children with disabilities are more susceptible to abuse, including physical and sexual violence as they may not receive sexual education and may be less able to defend themselves against sexual abuse and rape. Other reports indicate that, the mortality rates for people with disabilities are higher than children without disabilities.

According to CCBRT Vision 2008-2012, Guiding Tanzania Document of 2008, persons with disabilities are three times more likely to contact HIV/AIDS as they are often excluded from receiving information about HIV/AIDS and they are less likely to receive HIV/AIDS related services. 

Because of combination of those factors, it is also on records that, in most of developed countries (Tanzania inclusive), about 90 percent of children with disabilities do not attend school and that, because of lack of education, these people find themselves in marginalized position as they could not be employed or self-sustaining. As a result, they form a poor family which will in return raise a poor child and access poor education which prepare him to live poor life. The vicious cycle of poverty rolls around in that way.

Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2010 which quotes the Disability Survey Report of the Government of Tanzania of 2008 confirms that, the current illiteracy rate for disabled persons in Tanzania is 47.6% compared to 25.3% of the people without a disability. That means almost half of the PWDs are not educated.

Few luck ones who are educated, could also not get good jobs. Their impairment is regarded as misfortune and unfit by most of employers, who are of course, raised from societies which practices harmful traditional practices against the PWDs. It is terrible situation.  

After a long struggle of rights groups, the United Nations (UN) adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities of 2006 and its Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities of 2006. Tanzania has already ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities of 2006.

At domestic level, the legal framework on rights of PWDs is there. At the moment, the main legislation governing the rights, welfare and duties in relation to PWDs is the Person with Disabilities Act of 2010. There are also other laws which contain some provisions on disabilities. But the current Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania of 1977 does not accord this group special attention it deserves.

Be the case as it may, a strong and reliable protection of the rights of the PWDs is education because ‘elimu ni ufunguo wa maisha.’ Education is one of the main opportunities for the people with disabilities to demand for their rights. It is a tool of awareness of their rights and a key of their wellbeing. Therefore, failure to facilitate them to acquire their rights to education means repulse of other rights as well.

In seemingly disregard of this fact, our education system is not affirmative. Hundreds of government education reports and figures I have reviewed throughout the week do not contain good segregation of information on disabilities. They show quite impressive progress of enrolment rates in Primary Schools of boys and girls but not children with disabilities.

The figures talk about the increased ratio of books and teachers but not special learning tools and teachers for children with disabilities. The figure shows increased in number of schools under Primary Education Development Programme (PEDEP) and Secondary Education Development Programme (SEDP) but I could not get vivid explanations of how may out of those are special schools for children with disabilities and how many are renovated to make them universal accessible.

So many practical factors do restrain and draw back the progress toward inclusive (with PWDs) universal primary education. As a result, only few children with disabilities are attending schools as it is stated above. For instance, recent statistic information of 2008 and 2009 by HakiElimu and MKUKUTA Annual Implementation Report 2008/2009 shows that only 1 percent of children with disabilities were enrolled for primary school level of education and that in 2009. The enrolment decreased compared to 2008. That is, dropped from 34,661 in 2008 to 27,422 in 2009.

According to those and other reports, this situation is attributed by more other factors including the negative attitude of the members of the communities that, people with disabilities cannot sustain studies.

Moreover, the learning environments of most of the schools are very harsh to children with disabilities. The HakiElimu’s research of April 2009 revealed that, 95 percent of the school buildings, even those built during the implementation of PEDP have not taken into account the needs of pupils with disabilities.

Apart from the challenge of accessibility, the The LHRC 2010 survey revealed that, there are very few special schools and teachers in Tanzania. For instance, in Kagera region, there are only two special schools.

In Rukwa Region, there is only one special school. The schools do not have adequate facilities and teachers. At Nachingwea Primary School, there was a class of 22 disable pupils with only one teacher. Therefore, if the teacher falls sick it means that there would be no classes until when he or she gets well.  

Rule 6 of the UN Standard Rules on Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities of 1994 puts obligation to every State to ensure that it make documentation readable and accessible to different groups of PWDs.

Thus, Braille and tape services for blind people, large prints for albino and persons with low vision impairments, sign language interpretation services for deaf people and other appropriate technologies should be used to provide access to written information and documentation. Other provisions of this instrument require recruitment of specialized instructors for PWDs. All these are issues which our education system needs to accommodate.

The current Education Act of 1978 as amended in 1995 and 2009 should be refocused and remove some of its provisions which, instead of safeguarding the interests of these children in schools, they actually perpetuate the violations.

For instance, Regulation 7 of the Education (Expulsion and Exclusion of Pupils from Schools) Regulations of 2002 which is made under provisions of the Education Act of 1978 permits heads of the schools to refuse to admit or readmit pupils with undesirable physical health in their schools if it appears that a pupil’s physical condition attracts undesirability for the pupil to be admitted to the school.

As DOLASED has argued, this rule is discriminatory because disabled children can be denied of access to school by being considered to fall under this broad category of having undesirable physical conditions.

The challenges, in which the children with disabilities are facing at primary school level, have direct bearing into their levels of performance and continuity to the secondary level of education.

The available statistics indicate that the level of passing the examination of pupils with disabilities is dropping. For instance, in year 2009 only 65 percent of pupils with disabilities were selected to join secondary schools comparing to 70.43 percent of 2008. Therefore, for one year only the number has dropped down for about 16 percent.

More recent statistics could not be easily obtained. Probably, the status is the same because nothing much is vividly seen in terms of improving the facilities and resources. Besides, the discriminative cultural norms are still stringent despite the said improvement. 

As we prepare to celebrate another African Child Day this week (16 June, 2011), it is important to take into account all these issues into account in order to give children with disability a reason to recognize their dignity just like other children without disabilities. 

To make a more practical proposal may be, local government authorities at any level can actually formulate and ensure implementation of bylaws as part of redressing the current situation basing on its local context.

The first step could be identification of these children in their villages and streets. The local leaders can inform and assist. Again, one or two schools within a district can be designated as special school and that, a little bit of a budget could be allocated for employing five to ten special teachers.

How much does this simple opinion cost a district or municipal council to educate less than 150 children with disabilities? Can’t we reduce annual budgets for furniture and posh cars for our children? We can if we decide to love our children in a more sincere sense. Everyone owe the children the best.  

---

* Clarence KIPOBOTA holds Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL.B (Hons)), Masters of Community Economic Development (Msc. CED) and Certificates in Human Rights and UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies. He is an Advocate of the High Court of Tanzania, currently working as Legal Consultant with LEGAL AND DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANTS LIMITED (LEDECO). He is also Human Rights Activist. Email: kipobota@yahoo.com Tel: +255 762776281/ +255 222700695.