The name COVID sounds so nice if not the “19” that marries it. Pregnant women may wish to name their babies after this anathema. School children may wish to sing it in an early morning matching song if not it’s an unpardonable devastating hazard on their standard medium of education (classroom learning). As for me, if not “Bless and Others” I am cool to house “you” with the World Health Organisation’s stipulated protocols.
Oh yes…! One keeps wondering what the role of “Bless and Others” in the battle against a horrifying COVID-19 would be. He is a physically challenged and a speech-impaired young boy within the Suhum Municipality, struggling to gain knowledge through inclusive education. Hardly could he stand on his feet for a minute, dragging both legs from home to school each morning, falling with both hands on the ground without a wheelchair to rescue him, touches almost every surface and playmates just to get a minute of rest. This keeps me cogitating all nights like a dirge singer.
Undeniably, “Bless and Others” are in almost every Ghanaian school. Thus, as the implementation of educating learners with disabilities with their counterparts of no such characteristics in the regular school environment would continue amidst COVID-19, as schools partially reopen in Ghana, my headaches, as I keep contemplating on, “What Happens to Bless and others,” in the midst of the deadly pandemic, COVID-19?
Hummmmm, I could not hunt down the tears grazing on my cheek, as I listened to seasoned educationists in the media on the preparation, action, and post-action strategies to welcoming learners back to school without the mention of any special arrangements for inclusive education. All seem not to give attention to how the learner with asthma would cope with learning in an already congested Ghanaian classroom with little or no ventilation? I understand class sizes would be reduced drastically, but what appreciable correlation exists between the trauma of asthmatic patient and class size?
Sincerely speaking, I could not answer the question to date, as the debate continues. What happens to “Bless and Others?” Let us not be quick to defend this. Let us rather rethink deeper in order to rescue “Bless and Others” in our preparedness to reopening schools in our dear mother Ghana.
With little breathe, only the classroom teacher understands how herculean a task it is, handling inclusive education, let alone in the midst of a pandemic like “Lady COVID.” The Ghanaian teacher is very knowledgeable and smart, knowing that, the “Bless and Others,” I continue to weep for, could encapsulate: all children with partial vision, hearing difficulties, and those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among others.
Unfortunately, here comes the “New Normal” where hagging, holding their arms, carrying them, sitting beside them among other strategies used by teachers to demonstrate affection and love towards them have become obsolete–not just obsolete but it is now termed illegality to do these things publicly. How could “Bless and Others” enjoy our attention, care, and rescue strategies in order to cope with learning and escape the risk of contracting the virus? How could the classroom teacher manage their attention span, in the absence of outdoor playtime? How could their writing skills be improved upon in the absence of holding their hands to scribble, due to social distancing protocols in our schools? Effective classroom management strategies seem to be a mirage but, I challenge you..! Let us think outside the box now, as teachers, and school administrators, and make it happen positively.
Indisputable as it remains, the reopening of schools in Ghana needs real brains to usher in positive and admirable impact on education.
Way Forward -Teacher Unions should
- Offer their members online education on accepting the existence of the virus. How to ensure effective classroom management and still show love, care, and affection to those with disabilities, as it becomes a doom for the learner and the country at large when the teacher fails to provide adequate content on the pandemic.
- Capture empowering members to undertake voluntary door to door community-based education on COVID-19 ideas in their strategic plan-using the WHO protocols, all in demonstrating their preparedness to welcoming students back to school. These measures would clear the doubts in the students’ minds about the virus and get them prepared affectively and cognitively, knowing what the virus is, what the protocols are, how to show adherence, build trust and eagerness to resuming school.
Way Forward -Parents should
- Accept the disability of their kids, perceive it as a challenge to overcome, they should report to school principals the first day of admission the disabilities of their wards.
- Stopover pampering their children, this is not the time, let them appreciate the “new normal,” show support to government and teachers in ensuring that their children enjoy good quality education and “stay safe”. Not shifting responsibility in providing, protective equipment solely on government.
Conclusion
I wish to make this humble appeal to the government, the ministry in charge of education, the Ghana Education Service, and all benevolent stakeholders in the sector, to revisit the policy on inclusion to suit the “new normal”, thus targeting: provision of free wheelchairs, hand gloves, hearing devices, vision enhancement devices, “Special Personal Protective Equipment,” making educational facilities disability friendly, providing urgent COVID-19 Based In-service Training (C-BIT) to all teachers, making special arrangements for asthmatic students- so that, they could be exempted from the use of nose masks and hand sanitizers. “Bless and Others” need to survive the torrential hostility between COVID-19 and education when schools fully reopen in Ghana.
WISDOM KOUDJO KLU,
EDUCATIONIST,
KPONE-KATAMANSO MUNICIPAL,
GREATER ACCRA REGION.
