Portfolio Committee on education at Gauteng focusses on special needs education
Special needs education is a sector where the consequences of apartheid remain most evident. Here, the segregation of learners on the basis of race was extended to incorporate segregation on the basis of disability. Apartheid special schools were thus organised according to two segregating criteria, i.e., race and disability.
In accordance with apartheid policy, schools that accommodated white disabled learners were extremely well-resourced, whilst the few schools for black disabled learners were systematically under resourced.
Moreover, learners with disability experienced great difficulty in gaining access to education. Very few special schools existed during the apartheid regime and they were limited to admitting learners according to strictly applied categories.
Learners who experienced learning difficulties because of severe poverty did not qualify for educational support. The categorisation system allowed only those learners with organic, medical disabilities access to support programmes. This shows that apartheid education system was discriminating learners according to race, disability and socio-economic background.
Is this still the case? Has there been any improvement to special needs education since the new dispensation? To find out more please join the Portfolio Committee on Education tomorrow when they embark on an oversight visits to various schools in the province. The Committee will also reveal education plans that are aimed at uplifting the support programmes for the special needs schools.
The visits will be structured as follows:
Date: 14 October 2014
Starting time: 09h00 at Gauteng Legislature Committee Room C
Oversight visits: Orlando West and Meadowlands
For more information please call:
Sithembele Tshwete, Senior Media Officer
Gauteng Legislature
Cell: 072 479 9831 or 073 272 1516
