Loneliness descends on Mercy Alimo, a deaf mute child in Pece division, Gulu municipality. Alimo is five years old, and would be attending kindergarten just like any regular child. Each morning, her age mates in the neighborhood go to school.
However, as CAROLINE AYUGI reports, Alimo does not. There is no nursery school in Acholi sub-region that embraces children with speech and hearing needs.
It is about 7:40am and Alimo exchanges signs with her neighbour. The duo exchange seconds of hearty smiles. Immediately, her neighbour leaves for a primary school about 1.5km away. I later learn from Alimo’s mother, Monica Akun, that she is her daughter’s closest friend.
Akun is sad that her daughter is missing the socialization that she should be getting in kindergarten.
“I hope to enroll her next year in the only primary school in the district that includes the deaf,” Akun said.
Just like Alimo, hundreds of children with hearing and speech impairments in Gulu are at home, as there is only one primary school in Acholi sub-region which embraces learners with such disability.
THE EFFECTS
Monica Akello is a primary one sign language teacher at Laroo primary school in Gulu. The school includes the deaf. However, Akello says she faces a huge challenge there as the only sign language teacher there. None of her pupils ever undergoes kindergarten training.
“The pupils join primary one when they do not know the alphabet and numerals. So, I start by teaching them things taught in nursery school,” Akello said.
The situation gets even more complicated because most of them join the school without the basics in sign language. At worst, they join school with a rudimentary appreciation of what would go for local sign language, which is different from the signs nationally recognized or taught in schools. So, taking them from their local sign language to the recognized one is very challenging.
A nursery school is a foundation of primary education. It is where pupils interact and learn how to socialize and make friends. This process aids the development of their brains and lastens their learning process. Akello explains that not attending nursey school turns deaf pupils into slow learners. So, they have to be handled individually, which affects the completion of the syllabus.
“If, for instance, I have seven pupils in one class, I end up giving each of them a different assignment. I handle them one-on-one due to their individuality. It is so exhausting and time-consuming,” She said.
Akello adds that she has difficulties introducing the pupils to tangible things like animals and insects, since the deaf unit does not have charts.
“Children are introduced to drawings in nursery school, but here there are no charts. So, I take the learners to the field to show them live animals and insects. Some of them freak out, and become uncontrollable, especially when they see insects they have not seen even in pictures,” she said.
Akello says the limited learning aids, and poor performance by most of the pupils, have made many parents take such children out of school, while some drop out on their own.
“At least half of the deaf pupils who join the unit drop out before they reach primary seven,” she said.
Akello revealed that the lack of a nursery school forces many deaf pupils in the district to start primary school when they are nine or 10 years old, yet by that age, the child should be in primary four.
“So, when they join primary one, we promote the fast learners to the next class every term, such that they complete three classes in one year,” she revealed.
Uganda has only 24 established primary schools and units for the deaf. Besides, there is only one nursery school for the deaf, in Mulago. Dominic Ocen, an official at the Gulu District Union for the Deaf, revealed that more than 100 deaf children within the municipality, who are registered at the union, are not studying.
“There are at least 150 deaf children within Gulu municipality, and only 30 per cent are in primary and secondary schools. The rest are at home,” Ocen says.
According to Ocen, all deaf pupils in the villages are not studying; something he says makes their future even more grim.
Ocen said there are no plans yet by the union to lobby for funding from partners to set up nursery and primary schools for the deaf. The government has emphasized the need for Early Childhood Development centres (ECDs) in its policies.
In 2015, Uganda announced the initiative, emphasizing that every government -aided primary school must have a nursery school. But we are yet to hear about the opening of more nursery schools for the deaf.
Ocen, however, appealed to the government to consider opening up learning centres for the deaf mutes (people who can neither hear nor speak). According to Ocen, investing in the education of children with hearing and speech impairment will make them self-reliant, reduce dependency on relatives and brighten their future.
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