Disabilities In Education Essay

Educational policies in Zimbabwe do not openly discriminate against people with disabilities, for example, the Education Act of 1996 which states that .There is a general feeling that school authorities do not understand disability issues and are perceived as unwilling to make any efforts to ensure that these issues are effectively addressed. Most school heads are reluctant to enroll children with disabilities, to a point where families of people with disabilities have to negotiate with authorities to have their children in school. People with disabilities say that they frequently face negative attitudes from employees in the education sector. They believe these attitudes are largely attributable to uncertainty among educational personnel about how to deal with students with disabilities, and to the overload of work responsibilities. Teachers have difficulty in paying attention to pupils with special educational needs due to large numbers of pupils in inclusive classes, while there are inadequate facilities for special classes within regular schools (Choruma, 2007).

By seeing impairment as an ordinary part of life, and disability as the result of discrimination and exclusion, the social model has underpinned efforts to extract disability from the medicalised, special needs and push for the mainstreaming of disability concerns in all development policies and practices. There have been numerous positive statements of intent by both government and international agencies about the need to mainstream disability in development work (Aberlt, 2004).

The main source of information for people with disabilities in Zimbabwe is the radio, followed by meeting with other people. Very few visually impaired people with disabilities have acce...

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... mainstream society, which is their human right, the way society is organized must be changed (Carson, 2009).

Nevertheless, for instance challenges to access education for most people with disabilities start right at the family level. People with disabilities are faced with negative attitudes from family members. These attitudes are mainly reflected in the view that sending children with disabilities to school is a ‘waste of time’. They believe that people with disabilities are not able to learn. Parents and families have a tendency to prioritize household chores instead of education, in some cases related to all children, but in many cases when it comes to people with disabilities. There is also a tendency to keep girls with disabilities at home, thinking they are even less able to learn than boys (Choruma, 2007).
The politicization of disability also prompted th