EDID program continues to empower schools to foster inclusive education in Northwest Region of Cameroon
The Regional Delegate of Secondary Education, Mr. Ngwang Roland Yuven has disclosed that thanks to capacity-building workshops for teachers from Schools of the Community of Practice for Inclusive Education in Mezam Division – Northwest Region, the performance of children with disabilities at the end-of-course examinations in the said schools has witnessed significant improvement, with success rates as high as 86% in the basic education sector and 81% in the Secondary Education sector.
He was speaking at the opening of a 3-day workshop on inclusive education for mainstream teachers of the Northwest Regional Inclusive Education Community of Practice which took place at the Baptist Center, Nkwen in Bamenda from August 22-24, 2023. The Regional Delegate applauded the CBC Health Services for her efforts in promoting inclusion in schools in the region. He said the workshop was timely, as it will allow the teachers to refresh their memories with knowledge on inclusion.
While thanking the teachers for their hard work towards inclusion, the Regional Delegate pledged the support and availability of the CBC Health Services, and the Regional Delegations of Secondary and Basic Education to the schools to ensure inclusive education.
The workshop, which was aimed at enhancing the capacity of mainstream teachers for effective inclusionary practices was organized within the Community of Practice as a Leverage for Sustaining the Gains of Inclusive Education Project of the Empowerment and Disability Inclusive Development (EDID) program which is funded by the Liliane Foundation in the Netherlands.
During the workshop which was characterized by work sessions, the lead facilitators – Mrs. Bridget Fobuzie, CBCHS Education Adviser, and Mr. Ndintek Kennedy, the Project Coordinator, led the teachers to reflect on challenges, successes, and good practices recorded in fostering inclusive education in their respective schools during the last academic year.
Working in group sessions, the teachers who were drawn from the Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Government Schools in Mezam Division, illustrated through presentations, their different strategies for ensuring inclusive practices in their schools such as the training of sign language teachers to facilitate communication with learners with hearing impairment, the creation of circle of friends for learners with impairments, brailling of notes for learners with vision impairments using visual aid for proper understanding, awareness raising, improving access to classrooms and school environments, amongst others. These strategies that were put in place by the schools contributed to the improved academic performance of the students/pupils with impairments.
One striking observation from the presentations at the workshop was that some schools of the Community have embraced inclusive education so well that they are providing subsidies to their teachers to gain specialist skills that would make them more productive in the classroom. In one of the presentations, a teacher recounted how in their school, they didn’t give up on a learner with a profound orthopedic impairment but persevered with her and gave her all the rehabilitation support that she needed, to the point that the learner began to walk on her own and developed self-care skills.
Despite the success recorded, the teachers also brainstormed on the challenges they faced in the course of the academic year such as stigmatization of learners with disabilities by teachers and pupils/students in some schools, lack of assistive devices for most pupils/students, and inaccessible classrooms, amongst others. The discussions focused on different impairments such as vision, hearing, hard of hearing, orthopedic, and Intellectual impairments, amongst others.
Mrs. Fobuzie drilled the teachers on Universal Designs for Learning (UDL) which is a concept that promotes inclusion and increased access opportunities for everyone. She encouraged the teachers always to assess the learners to understand their learning needs and provide appropriate accommodations using different strategies that would enhance their performance. Using their lesson plans from the last academic year, the teachers were trained on how to adapt and incorporate UDL concepts in developing lesson plans.
The workshop came on the heels of a similar workshop with resource teachers that took place earlier from August 16-18, 2023 under the distinguished patronage of the Regional Delegate of Basic Education.
Last year, the CBC Health Services worked in collaboration with the Community of Practice (CoP) schools to design admission registers to track children with different types of impairments in the schools. During the workshops, resource and mainstream teachers reviewed the registers to enhance their understanding of the use of the registers.
According to the Assistant Head Teacher of CBC School Nkwen Complex, Mrs. Dubila Patience, the initiative to adopt the new registers is a laudable one because it will inform the interventions that schools need to put in place to support the teaching of children. “It also helps us to give parents feedback on the academic achievement of their children,” the assistant head teacher testified.