Principal of the Senior
Secondary, Special School for handicapped children, Borikiri, Mr. Fredrick Igbanibo Amachree, says amongst the numerous challenges faced by the school, lack of science laboratory and library stand out.
Amachree, who disclosed this in an exclusive interviewlast Friday, stated that lack of these facilities has deprived the school from being chosen as a centre for Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination and National Examination Council (NECO).
“A Senior Secondary School”, he said, I requires a science laboratory, and for a special school, we also require resource room for the blind and other facilities which are required in the Management of Special education”. So, we need the government to come to our aid.
Explaining why the school, which was established in 1985 did not have these facilities, the principal said for 17 years NECO occupied the space meant for the facilities.
“Our challenges are many, but one of the most pressing challenge we used to have was the presence of NECO, which has come to an end.
“Now NECO has moved out while they were here we had no accommodation for our science laboratory, library, staff and resource room for the blind. Now that NECO has moved out, the challenge is how to convert the available space to laboratory, library,” etc, he said.
Another key challenge the school has, according to the principal, is in terms of incentives to special teachers in form of special allowance, which he said, is done in other part of the country.
“Since 1985 when the school was established, the government has not paid any special allowance to the teachers. In other states, special educators are paid special teachers allowance in varying percentages, with the state government deciding on the percentages”, he said.
“There is also the challenge of lack of desks for the students, which he said was last provided by the state government”, about 15 years ago.
Mr. Amachree used the opportunity to call on the state government to consider building the capacities of staff of the school through in service training and other training, locally and abroad.
“Special education is a fast-moving science field. All the time there are innovations, new introductions to existing knowledge, hence it needs to be updated regularly,” he said, adding that “this is not the case in our own school”.
Beyond these, the principal said the school also needs customized computers to enhance teaching and learning in special schools”.
“We will also need the government to look at providing us with customized computers, computers that are fitted with Job Access with Speech (JAWS), which enables blind users to have access to the computer,” he said.
To enhance the work of the office of the principal, Mr. Amachree also appealed to the government to provide a vehicle for the office.

Sogbeba Dokubo