Locked in confusion

Equally, if the State fails to resolve the impasse that has broken out between the association and the principal of the School for Blind Children it will find itself accused of breaching the Constitution which enshrines the right to education for all regardless of background.

The situation at the school has been fraught for the last few months. At one stage, an association official was arrested by police for purportedly trespassing on premises he insisted he had a right to be on. Up to last Friday, the doors to the school remained closed due to an impasse between the association and school principal Derrick Mundy.

In a press release on Friday, the association advised of its decision to close the school which is located at the ironically-named Pax Vale, Santa Cruz.

The school has a long and storied history and has produced many outstanding individuals. It is unthinkable that the education of a segment of the population should be held back due to what appears to be strife and bacchanal. Some people simply do not like the principal and are, therefore, intent on taking up the powers seemingly given to others by the law.

What are the true powers of the association, which was given the school in 1951? What are the powers of the State? Let us sort these issues out.

For any resolution, the Ministry of Education must intervene.

Regardless of the legal powers held by each party, the association and the school cannot be at loggerheads like this. The longer the situation exists, the more students will suffer.

One of the most outstanding individuals associated with the school was the late Maurice Connor.

In 2001, he diagnosed problems in the sector of education for the blind that, with hindsight, look like premonitions of today’s impasse.

“Some people may feel that the changes and improvements in the education of the blind and visually impaired have not come rapidly enough during the 86-year existence of organised welfare work for the blind in this country,” he once wrote in a foreword to a history of blind education in the country.

“After 11 years as a student at the Institute for the Blind and 34 years on the staff of the School for Blind Children, Santa Cruz, I can understand these feelings. This state of affairs is not due to any acts of repression by the committees concerned.

It is rather a reflection of the attitude of the society to the disabled: for example, its misguided patronage and excessively custodial approach to the work during the first period,” Connor wrote, adding: “There must be a more proactive approach to the education of the blind and visually impaired that will allow many of them to become independent, productive citizens of the community.” These sentiments, almost two decades ago, still ring true today.

The deeper issue is the State’s overall approach to the education of the blind and to the management of disabilities in all spheres of life.

For example, the State has boasted of installing teachers trained in handling dyslexic students. Yet the experience of the ordinary man in the street is not a good one. Often teachers are trained but not properly so. Students who have been identified as dyslexic sometimes do not have their needs addressed. It has fallen on NGOs to go to schools to push sensitisation.

Similarly, when it comes to the State’s handling of education for the blind, we cannot detect enough progress.

It’s time to restore the School for Blind Children to its rightful place in an overall system that is sensitive to the needs of all. The first step is to resolve the sparring. The second is to improve infrastructure. And the third is to implement an overall disabilities vision.