‘Failure to enforce laws making life harder for persons with disabilities’

A daylong symposium on special education was organised at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology on Tuesday to examine inclusiveness and equality in the country for persons with disabilities.

The symposium was organised by the Special Education Department and issues and opportunities for persons with disabilities were discussed. According to a statement released, a number of facilitators were invited from different institutes, including the University of Karachi, Rangers Special Children School, JS Academy for Deaf, Aziz Begum Memorial Special School, the sports coach from Pakistan Special Olympics and a teacher with special needs from the Sindh Government Special Education Complex to express their views on the matter.

The facilitators unanimously agreed that our society needs to broaden its concepts regarding disabilities and towards persons with disabilities to see how differently-abled they are. They lamented that although there was an abundance of policies for persons with disabilities, their implementation was lacking which makes the situation even graver for such people.

Attitudes towards issues like transportation, employment opportunities for PWDs, the inclusion of children with special needs in the regular early childhood programmes and awareness of social model through projects of community-based rehabilitation were also discussed.

It was highlighted that experts must accept and elevate the concepts of needs-based and diverse inclusive setups at the local level in every area by including local community and related stakeholders in the process. The head of the Special Education Complex Dr Farhat Khanam appreciated the role of special education schools and suggested to move students towards inclusion into usual schools.