An expert in Special Education, Mr. Samuel Apeh, has called on government at all levels to open up more schools for children with special needs in the country.
Apeh, who is the founder of a non-governmental organisation, Christ Light Special Mission for the Deaf, Lagos, added that rather than mainstreaming children with special needs, there was the need to provide them with special and exclusive environment to aid learning.
The expert in Special Education for the visually impaired, also urged government to provide this set with special teachers and to also pay the teachers special salaries for their efforts.
Apeh disclosed this during a chat with our correspondent in Lagos, urging parents to accept these children as a gift from God and not by accepting them as their destiny.
“Your attitude towards them can make or mar your relationship with such children and your level of acceptance. But when you see them as your responsibility and treat them as yours, not like people with demonic spirit as in the case in many homes, these children can still achieve something in life,” he admonished parents.
He added that disability should not be seen as foreclosing the success that an affected child could record.
“We have a lot of them having first and second degrees and are doing well in one profession or the other,” he said.
On job placement for special children, Apeh lamented the level of discrimination in the society, saying there was the need for the society and the individual to accept them and relate with them, especially for job placement after their education.
Disclosing how the centre had fared in the past 18 years of its existence, Apeh said it was rough but with the help of concerned Nigerians and his wife, who is an expert in hearing impaired children, they were able to run the centre.
