Disability has serious negative consequences in the education of children with disabilities(CWDs) living in low-income communities both in special schools, the regular classroom system and in their communities.

Isolation

Most children with disabilities(CWDs) who attempt to be enrolled in the regular school system mostly in low-income communities and countries in live very isolated lives in their classrooms as a result of their impairments. This is sometimes accompanied by violence from both their peers and teachers. Consequently, many of them remain isolated in their classrooms and are forced to drop-out of school.

It should be noted that this negative peer and teachers attitude towards children with special needs has had very negative consequences in the education of children with disabilities. It has badly affected their access to education. 

Children with disabilities are isolated and dehumanized through abusive language. The study further established that in some extreme cases, some non disabled children and students perceive some children with disabilities as contagious.   Some fear them thinking that they can  “transmit”  their disability to them.  In some  extreme  cases  the  superstitious  parents  of  able  bodied  children  have  been  known  to deter their children from associating with children with disabilities.

The level  of  insult  between  children with disabilities and their non-disabled peers is  much more violent than when non-disabled children insult one another. What makes it different  is  that sometimes children being what they are will use the deformities of children with disabilities in their insults.  The injury to children with disabilities doubles because they can’t hit back in equal terms.

Violence in Educational and Custodial settings.

Apart from being isolated, disabled children in most African countries are often violated by their peers and teachers. Schools may cause exclusion when they are not able to deal with violence, bullying and abuse meted on children with disabilities.

Violence in non-residential schools.

Regrettably, victimization of disabled children in school can begin even before the child enters the school premises. Because educational facilities for disabled children are rare, many children travel long distances to school. Reports of physical and sexual abuse by those responsible for transportation to and from school are common. Disabled children are often bullied, teased or subjected to physical violence (being beaten, stoned, spit upon, etc.) by members of the community on their way to and from school. A young girl of about 17 years who is physically impaired and who attends the Rehabilitation Centre at Etoug Ebe in Yaoundé-Cameroon confided to the researcher that each time she passes with her wheel chair along the Melen neighbourhood towards Lycée d’Etoug-Ebe she is always mocked at and this sometimes causes her not to go to school regularly.

Violence inside the classroom.

Disabled children are often beaten, abused or bullied by teachers, particularly untrained teachers who do not understand the limitations of some disabled children. Also teachers who are not well paid sometime transfer their aggression towards CWDs. Children with intellectual disabilities and children with hearing impairments are particularly at risk, but reports worldwide find that all disabled children are potential victims. Sexual abuse by teachers is also widely reported for both male and female students.

Teachers that humiliate, bully or beat CWDs not only directly cause harm to the child, but model such behavior for other children in their classroom, who may follow the teacher’s lead in physically harming, bullying and socially isolating the targeted disabled child. Sexual abuse by fellow students is also a concern and is often linked to physical violence and bullying behaviors by such classmates.

The causes and consequences of childhood disability has resulted to many stereotypes and myths usually surrounding PWDs in the African society.

The way forward is for every disability advocate to continue sensitizing  educational authorities, teachers, parents of both disabled and non-disabled children for them to understand that disability is not an illness nor a disease. It is simply a condition that can be changed if our communities and the society begin to accept persons with physical, emotional, sensory and developmental impairments as human beings by including them not only in regular classroom systems, but in all the developmental and decision making processes of their communities so they can lead a fulfilled  life and maximize their God given potentials.

By Rene Momene Otte

Founder and CEO MADI.