Many special needs pupils in province left to suffer

More than 4,000 Eastern Cape children with special needs are sitting at home waiting to be placed in suitable schools.

This is according to the national department of social development.

However, the provincial department of education appears to have no knowledge of these children.

During a break at the inclusive education indaba in East London, MEC of education, Mlungisi Mvoko told the media he was not aware of this.

The national department of social development’s chief director of persons with disabilities, Lindia Pretorius, spoke at the indaba, which was held on Wednesday by the department of education.

Pretorius said the Eastern Cape was among the worst provinces when it came to the education of disabled children.

Pretorius said: “In most provinces when we get a complaint it would be referred and get attention.

“In the Eastern Cape, it got to a point where we stopped giving parents help and advised them to write to the MEC and then go to the human rights commission because there is simply no responsiveness in their system,” said Pretorius.

“And when a child is placed in a special school, they are placed at a school far from home.”

She said the province had the highest risk of children being abused or neglected at a special needs school boarding facility.

“There is an 80% to 90% chance that if I send my child to a special needs boarding facility, my child would be sexually violated, neglected and/or abused. That is how bad the situation is,” Pretorius said.

Mvoko said: “I had no idea we had such a big number of children sitting at home.

“As you know I am new to the department.”

The province’s chief director for social support services, Sharon Maasdorp, said the department had no knowledge of disabled children not in school and only knew about a backlog of pupils in mainstream schools needing to be placed in special schools.

“I don’t know where this lady from the national department got her figures but we are not aware of these figures,” said Maasdorp.

Speaking on the side of the indaba, CEO of the Eastern Cape Disability Economic Empowerment Trust, Thabiso Phetuka, confirmed many disabled children became adults without ever attending school due to the shortage of special needs facilities. There are currently 47 special needs schools in the province, which accommodated 10,000 pupils in 2018.

In 2018, the department’s spokesperson, Malibongwe Mtima, said about 30,000 disabled pupils with special needs were in mainstream schools, but they had “not been officially assessed”.