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By Rashidah Matandika
The Visual Hearing Impairment in Malawi (VIHEMA) programs manager Martha Momba says education and employment inclusion for persons with disabilities are dreams that are yet to be realized by persons with disabilities in Malawi.
Vihema is an organization that deals with persons who have a deaf-blind disability and according to Momba, persons with this kind of disability are far behind in personal development than those with physical disabilities.
Momba said while there are policies than talks of inclusion of persons with disabilities, learning and human resources remain the greatest challenges for persons with this disability category.
“What I can say is deafblind individuals are not fully participating in education, and after making a call to government,they are now drafting an education inclusive policy, however we are encouraging government to improve on teaching and learning materials as well as human resource so that the teachers should be able to deliver to all learners. We would like government to also understand that disabilities are in different forms not only physical challenge or albinism”, said Momba.
She also added that employment for deaf-blind individuals is on low level and hopes the policy that is being drafted will bring a change but the challenge is that persons of deafblind disability are mostly not educated.
Commenting on the matter director for Federation of disability organization in Malawi Symon Munde extended his gratitude to the ministry of education for having the passion in considering persons with disabilities. Munde attributed the tour that the minister of education and her deputy took in monitoring on how students with disabilities are doing in this year’s examination but said there are still challenges that are being faced by all persons with disabilities especially in the education sector as projects that come and phase out goes with everything that no one cares to sustain them. He said much as there is low representation for persons with disabilities in high decision making ranks, lack of commitment by civil servants in the education is the most serious challenge.
“We are talking of all education’s offices from the ministry to division offices and also district education offices.How seriously are they taking inclusive education? You will find that sometimes they take after thought and sometimes they would even use the budget that was allocated for persons with disabilities is not being used or is being used for other things all together”, Munde said.
The 2030 sustainable development goals number 4 on quality education target 5, states that by 2030 Malawi should eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable including persons with disabilities and hopefully if Malawi serious on the matter it will take the issue as one of the country’s priority areas.
