Deaf students to start school today

THREE hearing-impaired students, Anya Adams, Michael Auguste and Joseph Yee-Chan are to start school this morning. The students will begin their secondary school education at the Barataria Junior Secondary school. They will attend the morning shift. Yesterday the children were said to be extremely happy to try on their new school uniforms. Anya’s mother Joanna Adams told Newsday her daughter was “in the road with her uniform and I had to tell her (to) take it off.” She said they went to Tunapuna on Saturday to get school supplies and met Yee-Chan who was equally excited. The children were forced to stay at home since school re-opened on August 30, because the Ministry of Education had assigned them to schools where there were no facilitators to suit their disability.

Transfers were subsequently applied for, but Adams was denied while Yee-Chan and Auguste were placed at the El Dorado Secondary Comprehensive school where they were told there was no space to accommodate them. Only the El Dorado Secondary Comprehensive and the South East Port-of-Spain schools have facilitators for the hearing-impaired. However last week the Chief Education Officer, Paula Daniel confirmed that the children were being assigned to the Barataria Junior Secondary, where a qualified facilitator had been recruited and placed.  Daniel admitted the ministry was at fault in not initially placing the students at the proper schools, but assured the ministry was correcting the situation and looking to hire more facilitators.