Koforidua, Nov 30, GNA - The Headmaster of the Koforidua School for the Deaf, Mr Ofosu Boachie, has appealed to the public for support to complete its vocational centre for the Junior High School (JHS). He said the students performed better in vocational skills because of their handicap, therefore the need for the vocational centre could not be over-emphasized.

Addressing the 35th anniversary and speech and prize giving day of the school, Mr Boachie said in order not to skip such an important aspect of their education, the school undertook vocational activities under trees and on verandahs. He said the children's exposure to vocational skills greatly helped in their education at the Senior High School level since they tended to do well in the cookery and art courses. Mr Boachie expressed worry over parents' lackadaisical attitude towards their children and its effect on the performance of the students in the school.

He said most of the parents never visited or picked their children during vacations and the school had to spend additional cost in keeping house masters and mothers to cater for them. Mrs Rosemond Blay, the Director for Special Education Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES), said integrated and inclusive education programmes had been developed on pilot basis in selected districts alongside the existing segregated special education.

She said that was to enable children with special needs such as the deaf and dumb and the mentally handicapped to gain equal access to equal and quality education from early ages as well as to change people's perceptions and impressions about children with disabilities. The Koforidua School for the Deaf, which runs two disability programmes for the mentally handicapped and the deaf, was established in 1975 as a unit of the Presbyterian Primary schools in Koforidua with an initial enrolment of eight pupils

With its steady growth it was re-located in 1985 to its present location for integration with other formal schools and as a unit with New Juaben primary schools. The JHS section that was its mainstream with Sarkodee JHS was detached in the 2005/2006 academic year to enable the school register its own pupils for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). 30 Nov. 10