Education system for autistic children needs a revamp
RAISING a child with autism spectrum disorder will be a difficult journey for any parent but one avenue where they should be able to find some reprieve is from our educators who are sworn to help mold any child under their care into productive members of society.
At SJK Bintawa, Aaron Chung, the vice- principal, and Dora Aling, the coordinator of the school’s ‘special needs’ classes, believe that ‘special needs’ or autistic children are no exception to this rule.
“There are a lot of autistic kids out there and generally, one of the biggest signs of autism is if they do not know how to speak by ages two or three.
“In these cases, what they need most is early intervention — they need help so that they can function and overcome their autism limitations in the future.
“If these kids are able to get the support and therapy they need early on, then they will be ready enough to go to school when they become of age,” Dora said.
But the issue isn’t just about readying ‘special needs’ children for school life as the teaching duo believes our education system for ‘special needs’ kids needs to be revamped in order for us to increase their quality of life.
“So far, our government school classes ( for ‘special needs’ children) are more on academics, and this cannot really help the children 100 per cent in the future because it does not teach them valuable life skills.
“Normal children graduating from our schools will find the knowledge imparted to them to be useful in their future careers and future disciplines of further studies.
“But our ‘special needs’ children may have very little use for this knowledge as they still do not have knowledge about how to get jobs and how to be independent in their daily lives” Chung added.
He believes the curriculum for ‘special needs’ classes/schools will need more emphasis on building up conventional skills for their students to ensure they will be able to find employment in the future.
“We can teach them how to cook or draw which will help in the future but we must also teach them how they can apply these skills to their daily lives. Don’t always follow the book. Teachers must also be creative and think out of the box.”
To complement this effort of enabling our disabled population to live more fulfilling and independent lives, Chung also advocated there should be centres dedicated to helping these individuals even after their graduation from the education system.
“There are no specific centres locally that help train and recruit these individuals for employment. We don’t even have many companies or businesses that will be willingly to employ them due to the stigma they face.
“We have agents out there who help foreign workers find employment but none for our own. From our graduates, we can see this is one of the main issues because there are so many 18year- olds out there who cannot find jobs and have to live the rest of their lives at home.
“This shouldn’t be the case. They need a support function to help them find work and become independent so as to help ease the financial burden of their families. Especially in poorer households,” he noted.
While there has been good emphasis on providing access to ‘special needs’ classes in government schools around the country, Dora and Chung pointed out that many of these classes are in Malay-medium schools.
“We do have many ‘special needs’ classes but only a few are from Chinese-medium schools. This is a huge problem because ‘special needs’ children already have a hard time communicating and socialising, so children from Chinese families will find it almost impossible to integrate into Malay-medium classes,” Dora stressed.
With SJK Bintawa being the only Chinese-medium school offering a ‘special needs’ class, demand for placements in the school is overwhelming with a waiting list stretching up to 2021.
“More Chinese medium-schools and tuition centres really need to step up and consider starting ‘special needs’ classes to ensure there is a place for Chinese autistic children.
“And we also need more public awareness of autism so that both our teachers and parents can better understanding the plight of these children and give them the help they need,” Chung said.