Inclusive education gets K169m infrastructure
Save the Children International has rehabilitated nine resource centres and constructed 10 accessible toilets in schools to serve learners with disabilities.
The facilities are also set to be used as centres for development of inclusive education practices.
Speaking at the official handover ceremony in Mzimba on Thursday, Save the Children country director Kim Koch said the infrastructure have been rehabilitated and constructed in Mzimba, Lilongwe and Mangochi with $225 768.86 (about K169 million) financial support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy.
“We hope that the resource centres and accessible toilets will serve to mitigate problems that children with profound disabilities face, including learning in the disability unfriendly classrooms,” she said.
In addition to the rehabilitation works, Koch said the embassy’s funding was also used to mobilise and strengthen the capacity of communities in the three districts to support inclusive education.
Norwegian Embassy education counsellor Elin Ruud said education is one of the priority areas for his government in the country; hence, supporting the inclusive education sector.
He said: “Education is key to any country’s development. Education is a right for every person. So, we want to support government in providing education for everyone regardless of one’s physical status.”
On his part, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) chief education officer for Special Needs Education (SNE) Peter Msendera said inclusive education is important because it equips teachers with skills on how to handle learners with disability.
He said: “In this approach, teachers are trained on how to handle learners individually and not as a class. This is a good approach because learners with special needs are given the utmost attention to follow class lessons.”
