The Principal and teachers of Filadelfia Secondary School
Members of the School Governing Body
Ladies and gentlemen
Dumelang, Sanibonani, Good morning, Molweni, Avuxeni, Lotshani, Goeie more.
I am Bongi Maria Ntuli, Deputy Minister of Social Development. I bring you warm greetings from the government of our country and the Honourable Minister of Social Development, Mme Bathabile Dlamini who could not be with us here this morning as she is visiting another school for children with disabilities, the Adelaide Tambo School for learners with disabilities in White City Jabavu, Soweto.
The Minister asked me to convey to you, our gratitude for the valuable work you do here of empowering children with disabilities. You have taken up your skills, your intellect and your vision and directed them towards making a difference to the quality of life and sense of self respect and confidence and purpose of South African children with disabilities.
We salute you, you are, and you represent, the very best of human compassion and contribution. On behalf of the Minister and on my own behalf, I give you my greatest praise and encouragement in your endeavours. We ask God’s richest blessings on the school, the teachers, therapists, general staff, school governing body and families.
Ladies and gentlemen, today is the first day of the school year for most schools in the inland. I am therefore humbly honoured to be in the company of courageous men and women who are beacons of hope on the path to building a caring society. As teachers of learners with disabilities, your vision and boldness inspire people like me to continue to cherish and work for the greater ideals of life and nation building.
Your commitment and tireless efforts towards the greater good of society without any desire for recognition or material reward is what makes us unique as a nation. So it is important that today we let you know how much we appreciate the work you do because your work is important in advancing our government’s social cohesion agenda, which is all about ensuring that everyone, regardless of their social status feels included in their community and has the chance to be fully engaged in community life.
At the 99th anniversary celebrations of the African National Congress (ANC), President Jacob Zuma reiterated that our government will continue to work hard to improve the quality of education in our country. This government is committed to ensure that all children, including children with disabilities can access, participate and succeed in education on the same basis as other students.
The scriptures tell us that children are a gift from God, all children whether able-bodied or not. No child is lesser because of they have a hearing, visual or physical impairment. It is for this reason that our government has taken and will continue to take all measures to ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including equal access to health, education and recreational services, by children with disabilities and children with special needs, to ensure the recognition of their dignity, to promote their self-reliance, and to facilitate their active participation in the community.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
The work of Filadelfia Secondary School and the work of the teachers is a demonstration of what we can achieve when we are united in purpose and action. Together we can make a meaningful and life changing contributions towards the well being and upliftment of the lives of children with disabilities. Children with disabilities are very much a part of our society. Despite their physical or mental disabilities, they aspire for a brighter future as we all do.
As a department our long term goal is to equip people with disabilities with skills necessary to put them on par with the rest of society. We firmly believe that children with disabilities should have equal opportunities and be accorded equal rights to participate in development. Together we share the view that given a chance, people with disabilities are indeed capable of charting their own path to development.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The work of transforming our society will take more than just government to accomplish. I would therefore like to commend you for the significant contributions that you continue to make towards changing the lives of many children with disabilities by empowering them with education. Your jobs give you the unique opportunity to determine the future of this beautiful country of ours. I know and appreciate that you face unique challenges teaching children with special educational needs.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
You are preparing the young people here for the world beyond the gates of this school. A world that is not by any means kind to those with a disability. As a collective, our job is to provide these young people who constitute our country’s future with hope, help them realise their ambitions and give them necessary survival and technical skills to be self reliant.
As former President Nelson Mandela pointed out, the measure of a caring society is not how it protects the powerful, but the most vulnerable in society. I take this opportunity to encourage all of you continue doing the best that you can to build an inclusive and supportive society in which children with disabilities can live a meaningful life. I therefore pledge that this will not be a once-off visit but I will take a special interest in the Filadelfia Secondary School.
We want to work closely with you to ensure that children from this school and other schools throughout the country have access to all educational opportunities created by our government such as bursary schemes for student social workers or gaining access to institutions of higher learning or further education and training.
Children with disabilities are an essential part of the richness and strength of national character that diversity brings. Today I want to put on record my support for this school and my belief that you will continue to have a significant role in the education of pupils with special educational needs.
As you all know, children with disabilities and their families constantly experience barriers to the enjoyment of their basic human rights and to their inclusion in society. Their abilities are overlooked, their capacities are underestimated and their needs are given low priority.
The daily reality for most children with a disability is that they are often condemned to a "poor start in life" and deprived of opportunities to develop to their full potential and to participate in society. All children are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
We must therefore work together as a collective to ensure that all discrimination affecting children with disabilities are removed. As teachers in this school you have an important task of teaching young people here that their dreams are equally important as those of the learners of Crawford College in Pretoria or Vryheid High School in KwaZulu-Natal.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
The inclusion of children with disabilities in education and the broader society is not simply a charitable act. It is a process inspired by the promotion of human rights that benefits the entire population of a country and provides a clear statement of our government’s commitment to all our people as enshrined in our Constitution and other international instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I know that yours is not an easy task. I also know that 2010 was a difficult year for the school due to all the negative publicity in the media. The school suffered as a result of incidences of abuse inflicted on female learners by those who were in a position of power and those learners trust, namely teachers. I take this opportunity to appeal to you to conduct yourself with integrity and exercise good judgement.
I also call on everyone, parents, teachers and the communities throughout our country to be vigilant and report incidences of abuse of children with disabilities. You should not remain silent when you see or hear these things in your communities. This school should serve as a circle of support where learners can strive to reach their full potential. As teachers you must serve with pride and not allow unscrupulous teachers to tarnish the name of this school and the noble profession.
Within the Department of Social Development, we have a unit (Directorate: Services to People with Disabilities) and its main functions is to:
- Develop policy and legislative environment to enable the delivery of developmental social services to people with disabilities.
- Develop programmes and services that will ensure developmental care and protection services to people with disabilities (e.g. this can be through residential facilities, rehabilitation services etc).
- Develop programmes and services socio-economic development issues of people with disabilities. These programmes aim to facilitate employment of people with disabilities, especially those with developmental disabilities.
- Conduct research to inform the development and content of programmes and services designed to improve the quality of lives of people with disabilities.
- Develop norms and standards to guide the provision of appropriate & mainstreamed developmental social services.
The overall function of this unit is to ensure the mainstreaming of disabilities into all departmental programmes. This ensures that persons with disabilities are equally integrated and benefit from all our programmes and interventions. Recently, the unit developed a policy that promotes the use of disability mainstreaming. Following the finalisation of this policy it will be turned into legislation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to bring it to your attention that the department also provides scholarship to students who want to study social work as a profession of choice. Of course the students must meet the admission requirements of the institutions where they wish to study and I urge you inform the learners of this school about this and many other educational opportunities created by our government. Nothing stops pupils from this school from applying for the bursary scheme offered by our department. I will personally ensure that the unit responsible for this programme comes to interact with the pupils of this school during the course of this year.
Before I conclude, I want to appeal to parents to be supportive and get actively involved in the education of their children as parental involvement has long been identified as having a clear and positive relationship to the success of young people with regard to educational performance. This is especially true for children with disabilities, many of whom are from poor and rural communities. A research by United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) suggests that children with disabilities benefit by having continuing contact with their families and communities of origin. We therefore need to find ways to support parents of children with disabilities to get involved in their education.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to give a long speech. As I said at the start, the goal of our government is to ensure that no South African child, whether able-bodied or not, misses out on education. Our government has and will continue to ensure that we provide educational opportunities for children with special educational needs.
I once again give you my greatest praise and encouragement in your endeavours. I also wish to congratulate you on an excellent pass rate. The matric pass rate is not a reflection of one year of schooling, it is a collective effort by everyone involved in the development of a child.
I thank you.
