Miss-Delectable
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New Era
“It is very discouraging that due to a lack of inter-ministerial networking the much-needed early detection and referral system for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the country is still not realized.”
This is the view of the Permanent Secretary of Education, Alfred Iilukena, who recently officially opened a two-day conference at Okahandja under the theme: Deaf Education for Life: Linking deaf education and employment.
Deaf-learner instructors and teachers from around the country attended the important gathering.
“The most obvious and known reasons for unemployment of the deaf are the language barriers, negative attitudes and ignorance with regard to deafness. In my opinion deaf people can do anything, but hear,” Iilukena said.
He called on the nation to initiate a concerted effort to create opportunities to lighten the plight and burden of deaf people in society.
“The deaf need to be empowered through training and employment provision. This process needs to be speeded up if justice is to be done to the deaf, despite the existing shortcomings,” he said.
ICEIDA (The Icelandic International Development Agency) financed the rural workshop.
“Despite our commitment to offer education for all and having a solid political will to realize these, the Ministry of Education still experiences crucial challenges such as a lack of professionals in specific fields in deaf education, like interpreters, deaf assistants, teachers, language developers and promoters, financial constraints and a lack of collaboration among line ministries,” he said.
According to Iilukena, collaboration with NGO’s need to be strengthened to help uplift the plight of the deaf.
“The lack of qualified Namibian sign language interpreters seriously hampers the education of the deaf,” he concluded.
“It is very discouraging that due to a lack of inter-ministerial networking the much-needed early detection and referral system for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the country is still not realized.”
This is the view of the Permanent Secretary of Education, Alfred Iilukena, who recently officially opened a two-day conference at Okahandja under the theme: Deaf Education for Life: Linking deaf education and employment.
Deaf-learner instructors and teachers from around the country attended the important gathering.
“The most obvious and known reasons for unemployment of the deaf are the language barriers, negative attitudes and ignorance with regard to deafness. In my opinion deaf people can do anything, but hear,” Iilukena said.
He called on the nation to initiate a concerted effort to create opportunities to lighten the plight and burden of deaf people in society.
“The deaf need to be empowered through training and employment provision. This process needs to be speeded up if justice is to be done to the deaf, despite the existing shortcomings,” he said.
ICEIDA (The Icelandic International Development Agency) financed the rural workshop.
“Despite our commitment to offer education for all and having a solid political will to realize these, the Ministry of Education still experiences crucial challenges such as a lack of professionals in specific fields in deaf education, like interpreters, deaf assistants, teachers, language developers and promoters, financial constraints and a lack of collaboration among line ministries,” he said.
According to Iilukena, collaboration with NGO’s need to be strengthened to help uplift the plight of the deaf.
“The lack of qualified Namibian sign language interpreters seriously hampers the education of the deaf,” he concluded.