Teachers prepare for students with special needs

According to education officials, one in every ten children in Belize has a disability…be it attention deficit disorder, dyslexia or an impairment like immobility or blindness. It’s a sobering statistic, and today concern is focussing on how to adapt our educational system to account for these students with special needs. Today educators and non-profit organisation leaders met in Belize City to learn from their counterparts in Mexico on ways to ensure that all children have equal access to education. According to Celia Carillo, a special ed teacher from the Corozal District, the hope is that the attitude changing ideas shared today will eventually trickle down from managers to teachers, to the children themselves.

Celia Carillo, Special Education Teacher, Corozal

“The child must be enrolled in school, and that’s not happening in some villages especially. But we need to prepare the teachers first of all, and have them accept that every child has a right to an education first of all. Especially when we come to the Convention on Rights of the Child, there is an article specifically on the disabled child, and some teachers are not aware of that article. So teachers should know that first of all, then a whole mind change about the whole mentality, this child has a right. I am a teacher and I have to say that as teachers we don’t have a choice as to whom we are going to teach. These children, whether they are with or without a disability, they will be in the classroom. So we need to train teachers and have them change the whole mentality. It is not an easy one, it will take time, because all these attitudes will take time, and it is a process I have to say.”

Belizean teachers have identified a lack of training opportunities, personnel, resources and financing as major barriers to improving conditions for children with special needs.