By Our Reporters
In order to tackle the dearth of specialized teachers in schools, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is training regular teachers in special needs areas to teach in the model schools presently running inclusive education policy.
The acting Director on Administration and Finance (DAF) Mr. Leramoh Abdulrazaq who made this known during an interview session with Inclusion Magazine stated that the issue of short fall of teachers in schools is quite a challenge
His words, ” we cannot pretend about it that teachers in special needs areas are still a sort of a challenge to us and, the ones that we have are not necessarily adequate, but what we have done in the FCT, is that that we have a department, saddled with this schedule to ensure that even the regular teachers that we have are trained to meet the requirements of teaching in a special need environment”.
He explained that where they have shortfall of teachers, they train regular teachers to also teach special needs children.
“We are taking that challenge head on, we are still trying to engage as many special needs teachers as possible, but in the face of shortfall, we train normal teachers to handle that.
To ease the challenges of acquiring teachers in special needs education, Abdulrazaq added that some universities and colleges of education have made special needs course compulsory or elective to help fill the short fall experiences in schools across the country.
He said , “there’s a policy in place in the FCT, that the college of education, all higher institutions, the University of Abuja, its department of education ensures that any student that is coming into the university or college of education, whatever you want to read, must take a course in special needs as an elective”.
“its in the policy in preparation of teachers for inclusive education. So that every teacher has an idea of what special needs education is all about, these include how to identify children with special needs and what to do with them.
“We believe that it will really go a long way to take care of that shortfall of teachers, especially in special needs. All these are in our inclusive education policy, the course is not going to be very technical.
“Just like if you went to university, you must know something on special needs, it is a compulsory course for teachers.