SEN Unit to boost life skills training for children in special schools
The Special Education Needs (SEN) Unit of the Department of Education hosted a Special Education Needs and Disability Daily Living Skills Camp for children with disabilities and those who learn differently.
This initiative recognised the difficulty students with learning challenges, intellectual disabilities and physical limitations face on a more academic based curriculum and therefore boosted their education by equipping them with different skills.
National Special Education Needs officer Savvie Hopkinson emphasised the value of these camps.
“Because our aim at the end of this education process is to make children independent, functioning and contributing members to their families, communities and Guyana as a whole. To aid in that process what we did over the August period, we hosted some SEN camps.”
These were life skill camps that aimed to give the children marketable skills that will benefit them after they exit the education system. Special needs schools retain some students up to the age of 21.
Students were taught cosmetology, physical fitness, how to make simple snacks, tie dye, bedmaking, quilting and painting.
The Special Education Needs Unit believes this will help the students be better able to earn money and become independent after leaving school.
Hopkinson says these were hosted in Regions Six, Seven and Ten.
“Hopefully for the new year, we we’ll be able to include some other regions. Because not only were those life skills suitable for that time during the period of the camp, but now those same skills and activities are incorporated into the everyday teaching instruction for our students.”
She says, following on from the camps, teachers were able to continue on with some of the activities.
Statistics as of September 30 show there are 759 students (476 males and 283 females) across all 13 Special Schools in Guyana.
