Aside the challenge of poor collaboration form parents in the education of their wards with special needs, the State School for the Deaf in Accra, situated at Adjei Kojo, a suburb of Ashaiman, is having a hellish moment in feeding the two hundred and eighty-six deaf and dump student under its care.
This is because the 37 percent meagre-grant allocated to the school for feeding is unduly delayed, thereby creating a situation where debtors swoop to the school to request for their arrears for food supplies day in and day out. According to the headmaster of the school, Michael Cudjoe, the worrying trend could take a dramatic turn in future if the Ghana Education Service does not act speedily.
�While some of the suppliers have stopped delivering food items to the caterers, the few available are threatening to quit providing the school with food items on credit,� he lamented. Another headache, he stated, troubling the school is the shirking of responsibilities by parents on the school authorities.
He pointed out that about 60 percent of parents are absent-minded about the welfare of their wards while 25 percent sometimes express little concern or disquiet about the education of their wards.
�They always fail to attend P.T.A meetings, don�t honour invitations from the school to discuss problems affecting their wards and at best, reluctant to provide educational materials for their children in spite of the fact that the government shelves the fees of the wards,� he explained.
Mr. Cudjoe, who is also a national consultant for sign language, appealed to parents of children with special needs since if given the needed attention would perform creditably in the academic sphere. He added that his neglect tend to have a psychological impact on the children who are determined to study seriously. He also appealed to the government to consider a policy which would see to the introduction of sign language into the curriculum of tertiary institutions. Te sign consultant said this would enable able-body people to communicate effectively with the deaf and pave way for their contribution to national development since employers would bother less about their communication barriers.
The heritage
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