Fujairah schools in call of more special needs education staff

Fifty-eight public schools in the emirate have more than 1,000 children with disabilities but only 11 specialists.

FUJAIRAH // Schools are crying out for more staff qualified in special needs education as more than 1,000 disabled pupils across 58 public schools are served by 11 professionals.

The limited number of qualified special education teachers is considered one of the biggest challenges to integrating children with disabilities into the emirate’s mainstream education system.

Khadeejah Al Ansari, head of the Special Education Support Centre in Fujairah, said at least six more highly-skilled staff were needed to cope.

“We have 1,117 students with various disabilities studying at the public schools, and 59 joined this year,” said Ms Al Ansari.

“Most of the students have speech and language disorders, hearing and visual impairments, emotional and behavioural disorders, physical disabilities and some types of intellectual disability and autism.

“The level of severity varies with each case, so they need constant supervision, and we can’t accomplish that with the current number of specialists.”

All teachers in Fujairah’s public schools must attend training sessions on how to teach students with disabilities but this does not diminish the role of the specialists, Ms Al Ansari said.

“Students with a disability need different strategies and therefore they need extra attention and follow-up,” she said.

“We have three specialists for visual impairment, five for speech and language disorders, one for special education and two psychotherapists.

“We need sign language teachers, a specialist for autism, one for intellectual disabilities, an emotional and behavioural disorder specialist.

“We also need two more special education specialists as one is not enough, and two more speech and language disorder specialists,” said Ms Al Ansari.

Children are integrated into public schools under the supervision and approval of both Fujairah Rehabilitation Centre for the Disabled and the Special Education Support Centre.

Each undergoes an assessment and the most productive route for them will be decided.

The integration specialist at the rehabilitation centre said all of the children with hearing or visual impairments and physical disabilities were integrated into schools.

“We had a goal and we achieved it this year, as all the children who have hearing or visual impairments and those who have physical disabilities were assigned in schools and started studying there,” said Moza Al Wali.

“Some disabilities need extra care and special education, therefore we can’t integrate them into schools.

“The likes of [children with] severe intellectual disabilities and autism, they should undergo a special assessment to identify their condition and decide accordingly if they should be in the rehabilitation centre or join the school.”