Visually impaired persons are faced a lot of challenges including the lack of an inclusive education across levels, which impact negatively on their development and overall existence.
The lack of an inclusive education poses a threat their constitutional right to education; hence Nigeria’s Government has been urged to give more prominence to issues of the blinds, by adopting and providing inclusive education for the blind citizens.
In preparation for the International World Sight Day and International White Cane and Safety Day 2019, the Nigeria Association of the Blind, (NAB), Lagos State Chapter, made the call at a press briefing with Journalists on how education has been a factor to the success of the blinds and how the blinds can easily access education at their respective place of residence.
According to the State chairman of NAB, Tunde Muhammad, the government has a key role to play and can convince respective schools in the state and the entire nation to integrate inclusive education to primary schools and provide the blinds with materials and equipment that will be required for effective learning among their colleagues.
He called on the present administration in Lagos State to help reduce challenges of the blinds and advocate for acceptance in the society and into corporate bodies.
“All citizens are affected by certain shortcomings in the country including the blinds, being visually impaired is a challenge or a disability an individual has to deal with, yet is not the end of life. The previous regime in Lagos showered us love, we need the government to adopt developed countries approach by providing materials for our students in their respective schools, help us with inclusive education so that we can achieve our aims, as a result, people will have access to education in their vicinity. A lot of us are in need of job; we have many professionals among us who are reliable and diligent in their works but are denied due to their disability” he said.
Abolarinwa Sala mi, A lawyer called on governments to adopt inclusive education so that education can be accessible for visually impaired persons, all schools need do is to provide resource tutors who can understand our plights as well as provide materials for use.”
According to him, the available schools are not quite accessible for all, due to distance which extracts a lot of resources from us such as time, money and transporting ourselves to the locations.
Speaking on challenges faced as an impaired person, assistant secretary of NAB Lagos chapter; Oluwakemi Odusanya said ignorance, inclusiveness and accessibility are key factors.
“We have to accept that the blindness has come to stay and productivity has to come out of it, people believe being blind is a barrier to achieving great dreams and becoming successful, so, we have been ignored, you need to accept our conditions and include us into proper sectors like every other person.
“We also need accessibility to materials like everyone does, authors should consider producing e-books, pdf files so we all can use anytime. With my cane I am independent, I can be productive, carry out my assignments successfully, access the building of my working place and be productive in general”, she said.
Parents were called on to bring out their wards who are visually impaired and empower them through education among other empowerment programmes, in order to make something meaningful out of their lives.
Desmond Okon
