By ANDREW PHIRI –
A SEVETEEN-YEAR-OLD physically challenged girl of Dambwa Site and Service in Livingstone has appealed to the Government to send more special education teachers in high schools.
Blessings Mumbi, who qualified to grade 10 in 2012 but has not been to school since then because of lack of special education teachers, said it was unfortunate that pupils are being forced out of school because of there was no high school in Southern Province currently with special education teachers.
Ms Mumbi was very passionate about going back to school because she wanted to excel in her education just like many other girls.
Coming from a poor family and being brought up by a single mother was not easy, and efforts to find her a suitable school over the last two years had proved difficult although there was hope of her being taken to St Mulumbi in Choma next year.
“I qualified to go to grade ten in 2012 with very good passing marks. The challenge that has been there is to find a high school with special education teachers. What I need most is a boarding school because I cannot manage to commute to school every day if it were a day school,” Ms Mumbi said.
Her situation was reported to the Southern Province Education Office (PEO) two years ago where she was promised to be re-admitted into school once all logistics were put in place.
Ms Mumbi ‘s mother, who was looking after six other dependants was managing to pay for her school through selling dry fish and was now a beneficiary of the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) Scheme recently introduced by Government.
Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Senior Advisor-Zambia Alick Nyirenda said his organisation was aware of Ms Mumbi’s situation and the matter was being handled by the education authorities in the province.
His organisation was committed to seeing that lives of the disabled were improved through existing structures of the Social welfare department and community development.