You need passion, patience to teach blind kids –Dung, head teacher, school for the blind

You need passion, patience to teach blind kids –Dung, head teacher, school for the blind

From JULIANA TAIWO, Abuja
Monday, November 08, 2010

It is easy to take gifts of sight and sound for granted when it is now a daily routine each time you are caught up in the traffic to see a young girl or boy leading a blind person to your car to beg for alms.

On a good day you would part with a token that you wouldn’t miss and drive away, satisfied that you have been kind to someone that day. On a bad day you would probably wind up the window of your car and ignore the begging pair.

If you are the type that spends frivolously, never volunteered for public good except maybe compelled by church or organisations and above all you take the gifts of sights and sound for granted, you will be humbled and have a change of heart once you step into the compound of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) School for the Blind Children, a boarding school for children with varying degrees of visual impairment at Jabi, Abuja.

According to Mrs. Regina Dung, the head teacher, who read Blind and Special Education at the University of Jos by chance, she will never trade the joy and fun of the past 18 years she has shared with her children for anything in the world, despite the mounting challenges she faces daily in line of duty.

The fact that her ex-students like Theophilus Odaudu (now in University of Abuja), Lucky Pastor and Esther Iliya, who won the third position for the school in the spelling competition in 2009 and Emmanuel Daniel, a very musically talented lad who can play all instruments, are doing the school proud is enough to keep her going. She stumbled into the profession by chance:

“I had applied to study Pychology at the University of Jos. But I had no credit in Biology, the next option was to go for Special Education. I was wondering how I would cope, feeling very frustrated and sorry for myself, I decided to visit the department. I met a woman who came with her daughter for ear testing and she was pronounced deaf.

“This woman was crying as if she has just lost her daughter and that scene helped me make up my mind. I was thinking, how I can be of help to the girl and others like her. As if to ensure I don’t change my mind, along came these excited blind students with their cane chatting away in impeccable English and I stood by and watching with awe. I was so impressed with what I saw that I decided that was where I belonged, and since then I have never looked back.”

The school was established in 1991 inside the College of Education, Zuba and was known as School for the Visually Impaired. In 2007. it was relocated to a more spacious place in Jabi and “very close to the government” as Dung would say.

For the first few years of its inception, the school operated with just two teachers, one brail expert, a typist, a welfare officer and just two male students. By 1992, more dedicated staff joined the team, but student enrolment remained low. It then occurred to the proprietors that the name of the school itself kept student numbers low.

In 1996, the word “blind” was globally replaced by “visually impaired.” The term “visually impaired”, though the correct term, confused the local community due to its technical nature. When the name of the school changed to “FCT School for the Blind Children”, there was an immediate increase in enrolment.
During the early days of the school, resources were especially meager. While they served as a boarding school the pupils were housed in partitioned classroom blocks in the then College of Education compound. Medical care, feeding and clothing of the students were provided by the principal of the teachers college who was always reimbursed by the FCT Administration Education Department.

It is worthy to note that today though some staff had left the school either out of frustration of teaching with disability or lack of special allowance (15 per cent of the basic salary now increased to 30 per cent and now regular), some of the original staff members who joined either in 1991 or 1992 are still very much around.

Though the school is in a more spacious compound now, a proper dormitory is still lacking. The authorities had to convert some of the classrooms and partitioned them to accommodate the boarding students. The teachers still live long distances away from the school with the nearest living in Kubwa and Lugbe. The rest are scattered in Zuba, Suleja, Madala and Tunga Maje as a result of lack of teachers’ quarters in the school. Many a times, the head teacher has had to return to school during emergency situation. She will have to wait for the driver of the official bus who also leaves in Suleja to come for her in Zuba. At times they run into heavy traffic on the way back to the school.

The school runs pre-primary education, primary 1-6 with a special class or rehabilitation class. This class is for those not born blind but got blind after their primary education and cannot proceed to secondary school until they know how to read and write brail. The children in this class are trained on how to read and write brail, typing, human mobility and environmental orientation (to enable them walk around unaided). After these, they are ready for secondary education. How long a child stays in this class is entirely up to him or her (three months to one year depending on how fast he/she can grasp).

So far, pupils of the school have come from social workers of the Christian Blind Mission, Garki II Abuja: “What they (missionaries) do is that during the course of their missionary work to villages, they sometimes come across a blind or deaf child. After obtaining permission from their parents, they bring them to us. Others are from parents who have come to terms with the fact that their child is blind and would want the child to be educated. Others are cases reported in the media and then referred to us.”

Some of the challenges the school faces according to Dung include not having enough brail machines (each costs N270,000) to go round the children, having just six special teachers, hence instead of one teacher to a child in the case of what obtains in the West and one to seven in the case of developing countries, the school has one teacher to 15 or 20 children:

“We have about 30 brail machines right now. Some were broken down because we hardly have a repairer around. The machine parts are not easily found unless we place orders from Center for the Blind, Gindiri, Plateau State and the repairers are specialists. Again, everything boils down to funds and approval from the authorities. While brail is not meant for beginners (they use slates and stylus which we have in abundance as it goes for just N2,500), we lack special books as well.

“One thing you must note is that teaching the children with special needs is not an easy job, aside passion you must be patient and dedicated.” The school as at last session had 72 children but presently is 68 because four did not resume after the holiday: “I really don’t like talking about those who stopped coming. They are those whose parents have refused to come to terms with the fact that their children are blind and are going about trying to see if they can gain back their sights. Some of the cases are congenital. We have three, four children from the same parents all blind. Some is as a result of measles, cataract that were not properly treated at the early stage due to ignorance.

“Right now we have three of our children in Yola for checkup after successful surgery. Our volunteer, Mrs. Robina Atcha, a Canadian whose husband is teaching at the American International School, has taken it upon herself to raise funds to enable our children go for regular medical checkup. In the process, the medical personnel have discovered that some corrected with the help of surgeries.

“What happened is that Robina brought a doctor from Kano to check their sights. It was discovered that 15 of them could have corrective surgeries. Seven of them were operated in Kano, three in Yola. While in Kano and Yola their surgeries are free but transportation and accommodation for the parents have to be paid for, two of the surgeries are very expensive because they needed cornea transplant which costs over N500,000 each. Robina, whom I will describe as God-sent is also trying to source for funds for them to be operated either in Kano, Yola or even Garki Hospital in Abuja. For those that need to be operated upon for cataract we need N50,000 for them.

“Robina who heard about us from Naija Wives (an NGO of foreigners married to Nigerian men) sources her funds from her friends (former classmates) and family members residing in and outside Canada who believe in what she is doing. She told us she picked interest in volunteering because she had a cousin who was blind though late now.

“A typical day in a blind child’s life is not different. They follow strict rules and regulations not different from the sighted. The only difference is that they have a matron who guides them. They are taught the daily living kills as a course. They cook, iron, sweep, and keep the surroundings very tidy.
“Our biggest problem is not having teachers’ quarters. Because of their peculiar nature and the fact that they are given total education it is best they have their teachers close by always. They are taught all the time. It doesn’t have to be in the classroom. They come across things they are curious to know but nobody stays here, not even the welfare officer.”

“Government’s assistance to us is fair at least now that we are close to them we seem to be getting the attention needed unlike when we were in Zuba. We are under UBEC and we get four brail machines annually from them which is very good. Even funding for feeding has increased from N30 to N150 per meal. Instead of the classroom converted to hostels, we will prefer two blocks of hostels one for the boys and another for the girls and built far from each other because at the end of the day is a mixed school and we want them separated from each other apart from in the classrooms.”

Even though some teachers have had to move on, Dung cannot imagine herself without her children: “I might leave home sad but as soon as I get in here I’m very happy. The children are very funny, they say things that will keep you laughing, with tears running down your cheeks. I just have passion for the job; but prioritizing has helped me in joggling family and work.”