Miss-Delectable
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Deaf students can speak with ordinary students
The New Year starts in two months. Many students are getting ready to go to school in the hope that they will be able to achieve their dreams and become what they want to be.
For deaf and dumb students, the school year starts in a week. They are leaving special schools and going to attend public schools to try and realize their ambitions in the mainstream world.
Integrating people with special needs into society is one of the basic aims of the governmental Social Care Fund, as well as of many disability associations and schools. People with special needs should feel imprisoned because of their disability. They should not feel shy about what they are and they should feel confident that their disability does not mean they are worth less than other people. Their disability should be no barrier to their taking part in society as a right, according to the Al-Aman Organization for the Care of Blind Women.
Blind pupils who study in the same class with others ordinary student can overcome their disabilities by using a print machine or by recording lessons on cassette. But deaf and dumb children need to have their classes conducted in sign language, which isolates them from those who can hear.
“Integrating deaf and dumb pupils with other pupils is a decision taken from a social point of view rather than an educational one,” said Nabil Hamad, deputy director of Al-Amal Association for the Deaf and Dumb. “Deaf and dumb pupils with any kind of disability should know how to deal with any other student without fear or shyness,” he said.
The association has some 500 students; about 260 of them are have been integrated into public schools. He said that in Sana’a there are only three schools cooperating with association’s integration program. Because of increasing student numbers, the social fund is supporting building classrooms for deaf and dumb pupils in four other schools.
He added that almost all pupils enter the integration program, especially those who are not completely deaf. Al-Amal school has a nursery where the deaf and dumb can learn sign language. Pupils can then start going to public school depending on their particular needs and the possible advantages for them of this route.
Zainab School in Sana’a is one of the three schools in Sana’a where special classes for deaf and dumb have been established. Najat al-Najar, the headmaster, said that deaf and dumb classes were established in 2003. Deaf and dumb children can study years 4 to 9 there. About 27 deaf and dumb children are studying at Zainab this year, under four specially trained teachers.
Deaf students have to wait for buses to take them to school. The long journey and the limited number of buses, means students are delayed by up to an hour. Nabil Hamad said that the association has only six busses and that some times they have had to hire private buses at YR80,000 a month each.
When the students reach school they stand in the morning queue. They do the morning drill with their teacher who picks three of them to salute the flag by sign language.
Bilal and Nasim, who live near the school, arrive before the others as they do not have to make the long journey by bus. They were sitting alone in the empty playground, Bilal helping Nasim with her homework. They saw me speaking to their teacher. Bilal started talking to me with his hands. Surprisingly I was able to guess that he is trying to tell me that Nasim is not as clever as he is. Nasim pointed to me and they start to converse with sign language but I cannot guess this time what they said about me.
“Bilal is really very clever,” said Iman Yaser, a teacher at the school, starting to translate Bilal’s quick hands. Bilal, 12, is in class 5. He is from Ibb province. He left his mother and family and came to Sana’ to study and to stay with his aunt. He has four brothers and three sisters; he is the only one in his family who was born deaf and dumb. He does not know why.
Bilal does not dream of becoming a doctor or teacher; he wants to study to know how to read and write and how to communicate with other people and how to understand what is going on the world.
Bilal was wearing a hearing aid behind his ears. That enables him to hear strong voices. The association assisted him to buy it.
Nasim, 11, is in class 5 too. She has some weakness in her ears. She can hear loud voices. She can talk. She used to study for two years with ordinary students. She hated studying there as she could not make friends and other girls keep hitting and pushing her. Iman said that although they warned Nasim’s mother against letting her daughter think she was deaf, she insisted on enrolling her daughter in the deaf class. Nasim has forgotten how to speak and believes herself to be one of the deaf. She was from a poor family and her mother cannot buy her a hearing aid. She has lost the power of hearing in the right ear.
Tomorrow al-Amal school will have a class trip to the book fair and so there will be no class tomorrow as there will be no buses to drive them to school and back home.
Nabil Hamad said that besides the problem of transport, they also face the problem of recruiting qualified teachers. They lack qualified teachers to teach the pupils sign language. The association has to ask for volunteers and to train and qualify them. And even after that many have not found work as such work with deaf is unstable; some have had problems with the Civil Affairs Ministry.
Laila al-Ansi, a teacher of the deaf and dumb, said that after four years of working and teaching deaf and dumb, the ministry still does not employ them on an official basis.
Laila attended ministry courses on teaching deaf children. But government policy states that those who hold a Diploma (2 years after high school) or a Bachelor’s degree (4 years after high school) should have priority in access to official posts.
“I like teaching the deaf and dumb and I hope to increase my knowledge in this field,” Iman said. “I’m ready to spend more than four years to get qualified. But in Yemen there is nowhere that teaches a diploma or Bachelor’s in this subject. The longest courses last for no more than one year and we have to spend two or four years to study anything just to have official work,” she said.
The parliamentary education committee 2006 report recommended employing experienced teachers who work with the deaf and dumb on an exceptional basis teachers as there is still great need for them.
The New Year starts in two months. Many students are getting ready to go to school in the hope that they will be able to achieve their dreams and become what they want to be.
For deaf and dumb students, the school year starts in a week. They are leaving special schools and going to attend public schools to try and realize their ambitions in the mainstream world.
Integrating people with special needs into society is one of the basic aims of the governmental Social Care Fund, as well as of many disability associations and schools. People with special needs should feel imprisoned because of their disability. They should not feel shy about what they are and they should feel confident that their disability does not mean they are worth less than other people. Their disability should be no barrier to their taking part in society as a right, according to the Al-Aman Organization for the Care of Blind Women.
Blind pupils who study in the same class with others ordinary student can overcome their disabilities by using a print machine or by recording lessons on cassette. But deaf and dumb children need to have their classes conducted in sign language, which isolates them from those who can hear.
“Integrating deaf and dumb pupils with other pupils is a decision taken from a social point of view rather than an educational one,” said Nabil Hamad, deputy director of Al-Amal Association for the Deaf and Dumb. “Deaf and dumb pupils with any kind of disability should know how to deal with any other student without fear or shyness,” he said.
The association has some 500 students; about 260 of them are have been integrated into public schools. He said that in Sana’a there are only three schools cooperating with association’s integration program. Because of increasing student numbers, the social fund is supporting building classrooms for deaf and dumb pupils in four other schools.
He added that almost all pupils enter the integration program, especially those who are not completely deaf. Al-Amal school has a nursery where the deaf and dumb can learn sign language. Pupils can then start going to public school depending on their particular needs and the possible advantages for them of this route.
Zainab School in Sana’a is one of the three schools in Sana’a where special classes for deaf and dumb have been established. Najat al-Najar, the headmaster, said that deaf and dumb classes were established in 2003. Deaf and dumb children can study years 4 to 9 there. About 27 deaf and dumb children are studying at Zainab this year, under four specially trained teachers.
Deaf students have to wait for buses to take them to school. The long journey and the limited number of buses, means students are delayed by up to an hour. Nabil Hamad said that the association has only six busses and that some times they have had to hire private buses at YR80,000 a month each.
When the students reach school they stand in the morning queue. They do the morning drill with their teacher who picks three of them to salute the flag by sign language.
Bilal and Nasim, who live near the school, arrive before the others as they do not have to make the long journey by bus. They were sitting alone in the empty playground, Bilal helping Nasim with her homework. They saw me speaking to their teacher. Bilal started talking to me with his hands. Surprisingly I was able to guess that he is trying to tell me that Nasim is not as clever as he is. Nasim pointed to me and they start to converse with sign language but I cannot guess this time what they said about me.
“Bilal is really very clever,” said Iman Yaser, a teacher at the school, starting to translate Bilal’s quick hands. Bilal, 12, is in class 5. He is from Ibb province. He left his mother and family and came to Sana’ to study and to stay with his aunt. He has four brothers and three sisters; he is the only one in his family who was born deaf and dumb. He does not know why.
Bilal does not dream of becoming a doctor or teacher; he wants to study to know how to read and write and how to communicate with other people and how to understand what is going on the world.
Bilal was wearing a hearing aid behind his ears. That enables him to hear strong voices. The association assisted him to buy it.
Nasim, 11, is in class 5 too. She has some weakness in her ears. She can hear loud voices. She can talk. She used to study for two years with ordinary students. She hated studying there as she could not make friends and other girls keep hitting and pushing her. Iman said that although they warned Nasim’s mother against letting her daughter think she was deaf, she insisted on enrolling her daughter in the deaf class. Nasim has forgotten how to speak and believes herself to be one of the deaf. She was from a poor family and her mother cannot buy her a hearing aid. She has lost the power of hearing in the right ear.
Tomorrow al-Amal school will have a class trip to the book fair and so there will be no class tomorrow as there will be no buses to drive them to school and back home.
Nabil Hamad said that besides the problem of transport, they also face the problem of recruiting qualified teachers. They lack qualified teachers to teach the pupils sign language. The association has to ask for volunteers and to train and qualify them. And even after that many have not found work as such work with deaf is unstable; some have had problems with the Civil Affairs Ministry.
Laila al-Ansi, a teacher of the deaf and dumb, said that after four years of working and teaching deaf and dumb, the ministry still does not employ them on an official basis.
Laila attended ministry courses on teaching deaf children. But government policy states that those who hold a Diploma (2 years after high school) or a Bachelor’s degree (4 years after high school) should have priority in access to official posts.
“I like teaching the deaf and dumb and I hope to increase my knowledge in this field,” Iman said. “I’m ready to spend more than four years to get qualified. But in Yemen there is nowhere that teaches a diploma or Bachelor’s in this subject. The longest courses last for no more than one year and we have to spend two or four years to study anything just to have official work,” she said.
The parliamentary education committee 2006 report recommended employing experienced teachers who work with the deaf and dumb on an exceptional basis teachers as there is still great need for them.
