The importance of role models - the issue of disabled teachers

One of the hotly debated topics at the third roundtable meeting in Cambodia was the issue of disabled teachers and the potential role they can play as role models in society. Current legislation in Cambodia, however, prevents people who have disabilities from being employed as teachers in government schools. The reason given for this is that prospective teachers have to pass a health and fitness test and disabled people are perceived as being ‘unfit’. Yet they could be seen as having an extra qualification since they understand what it is like to be disabled in Cambodian society. They could also act as role models - inspiring disabled children to become teachers or other professionals.

At the roundtable, three disabled students, who attended mainstream schools in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, presented their stories to the participants. Significantly all three students expressed a desire to become teachers when they grew up. Sin Srey Neth, a student with visual impairments, when asked about Cambodian government’s policy of not allowing disabled people to become teachers, said: “Disabled children study hard for the future; the government should see the abilities of disabled people, not just their disabilities”.

Da Ne, a deaf student, discussed the importance of teachers being able to sign. She said: “When I first attended my government school my friends wanted to learn sign language, which made me happy. It is the support of my teachers and friends that makes me want to succeed”.

A prominent Cambodian NGO, Krousar Thmey (KT), which specialises in the education of deaf children and blind children, employs deaf teachers to teach deaf children in its schools, as these are not governed by Cambodian legislation. Deaf teachers are more likely to be fluent sign language users than teachers who are not deaf, and so are more able to communicate with deaf children – this is an enormous advantage when teaching deaf children. (See 'Including deaf children in education' story for more information about KT and deaf issues in general).

One role model, who attended the roundtable, is Mr Khun Prayat Punongon, the vice-chairman of Disabled Peoples International (DPI), South East Asia. Prayat has been involved with the disability movement in Thailand for over 30 years. He became active in politics and the disability sector during his time at university. At that time, however, even getting into university was a challenge. He was told he should not even apply since he was visually impaired. However, he was not put off and completed an English degree course. He now works with over 400 students in public schools, 600 in special schools and 120 in universities. He supports students to apply for scholarships from the Thai government and sees the education of disabled people and the support of disabled teachers as playing a crucial role in mainstreaming disability.

The role of disabled teachers in promoting inclusive education - examples from other regions

Mozambique
The Associacao dos Deficientes Mozambicanos, (ADEMO) is a national disabled people’s organization in Mozambique. In order to respond to the lack of qualified teachers in Mozambique and to address the exclusion of large numbers of disabled children from school, ADEMO is working with a teacher training college in Cabo Delgado in the north of the country to train disabled teachers.

The objectives of the ADEMO programme are to:

• Promote the right of disabled people to be educated
• Educate teachers who have disabilities who can lead by their own example and can be models for others
• Create an educational environment where there is room for all
• Promote the idea that people with disabilities can participate fully in the development of the society.

In 2001 the first three disabled people from ADEMO received a scholarship (from ABILIS, a Finnish disabled people’s organization) to attend the teacher training college and in 2003 they graduated. Four more students from ADEMO are currently participating in the teacher-training course.

The disabled students improve the educational environment in the college and offer a practical example to other trainees that education is for all. They participate in all the aspects of the school programme and social activities.

Kenya
Global Deaf Connection (GDC) is an INGO, based in the USA, whose main purpose is to increase the number of deaf teachers working with deaf students in developing countries. GDC is currently sponsoring three Deaf Kenyans to attend Machakos Teacher Training College. They will graduate in 2007 and will join ten Deaf Kenyan teacher trainees who are now in their second year of study. Ten Deaf Kenyan teachers have already graduated and are now teaching in Deaf schools; they have all received GDC scholarships.

See the following web site for more information:
www.deafconnection.org/enews/
enews200512.cfm

Tajikistan
This short story is about a disabled teacher who is invited by parents of disabled children to provide a positive role model for their children and to promote positive attitudes.

Save the Children UK supported a CBR project with an active parents’ group in Khatlon Province, a rural area about an hour’s drive south of the capital city. The parents organised day-care centres and playgroups in order to promote socialisation through play for the disabled children. ‘Mr I’ is a local teacher who has a physical impairment. Staff and parents involved in the day-care centre begged him to be involved. He used visual aids to get the children’s attention, and rhymes, riddles and maths games to make learning more interesting. The children often came to him to discuss their problems – a common problem for disabled children is being teased or insulted. They could share their feelings with him in a way that they could not with other adults - because he was disabled.

‘G’ has a speech difficulty. She used to sit quietly in a corner. ‘Mr I’ encouraged her to speak more and not to be afraid of her problem with pronouncing words. ‘G’ has moved to the First Form now, and ‘Mr I’ is in touch with her new teacher. ‘Mrs B’, whose child has a physical impairment, said that she felt encouraged by ‘Mr I’. She saw that he could manage well, and realised that her own child would also be able to manage in the future.

Source: Save the Children UK’s document, ‘Schools for All: including disabled children in education’, page 44.

UK
In the following excerpt from an email sent to the Disability KaR e-forum (April 14 2005), Richard Rieser talks about the role he has played as a disabled teacher in training teachers to include disabled children in their classes in the UK:

”I am a disabled teacher who has developed a Disabled People’s Organisation, ‘Disability Equality in Education’ (www.diseed.org.uk) in UK to provide training for teachers and other educators, produce resources to raise disability issues in the curriculum and develop disabled people’s capacity to become disability equality and inclusion trainers”.

Richard describes a recent project, the ‘Reasonable Adjustment Project’ for the UK Department for Education and Skills to identify good practice in inclusive education:

“We visited and filmed 40 mainstream schools which were amongst the 400 who put themselves forward to share their good practice. We found much good practice including for many children with learning difficulties, behavioural impairments and autism.

At the core of these mainstream schools, who are still a minority,
was a ‘can do’ attitude, a welcoming ethos, head teachers who believed in inclusion as a human right and were prepared to organise their schools to make it work, listening to parents and the disabled pupils’ concerns, teaching and learning that addressed the needs of all learners, and good and effective relationships with outside agencies. The result we observed were schools that were good places to be for all pupils, where all children were valued and valued each other. These schools in many respects were no different in terms of intake or resources to surrounding schools. They were different in attitude and ethos.”

Richard also talked about the potential for the UK education system to become fully inclusive within the next fifteen years:

”It is not beyond human capabilities to achieve an inclusive state education system by 2020. We have all the understanding, techniques and technology that we need to do this. What is lacking is the political will and shift in attitudes to finally end the shameful segregation of disabled children”.