The University of Ghana is the only tertiary institution in the country to cater for the needs of persons who are deaf, the Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD) has said.
According to a member of the Advocacy Committee of the Association, Kakra Ankobia, the office of the students with special needs at the University of Ghana provides interpreters to aid hearing-impaired students in understanding whatever is being done in the lecture rooms.
“In the University of Ghana, for instance, we have deaf students in the Department of Sociology, Archaeology, Social Work and Law. When you go to the UG Business School, Food and Nutrition, you find some of the deaf students there and they are aided by the Special Office that has been created for persons with disability. That is the case of the University of Ghana. You don’t have it in other universities; not all universities have that.,” he said.
He, however, stated that though the university provides interpreters for these students, the number is not enough to cater for all. Because of that, some of the students have to pay for personal interpreters to guide them throughout their lectures.
“At least for University of Ghana, I know that they have a special office that has sign language interpreters who assist the students who are deaf in the University but we don’t have a lot of interpreters there. Sometimes, the students have to pay from their pockets the services of an interpreter to come and sit through the lecture with you.
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“It means that the interpreter is leaving whatever they are doing, so you need to make sure that they are well compensated after helping you to understand the whole process or whatever is happening during the lecture,” he added.
Comparing private schools to schools that accommodate students with disabilities, Kakra Ankobia observed the vast difference in the quality of education in both areas despite the constitution’s directive for equal access to education for all children.
“There are some private universities that have not even thought about that. You even look at primary education…I was looking at the Constitution and I found that the Constitution states that all children should have equal access to education.
“I look at the deaf schools, and schools for persons with disability then I look at the private schools. I compare and say that look at the facilities they have, look at the number of teachers they have. Do we have same qualified teachers teaching in schools where you have persons with disability? No! So how do we say we are giving them equal access to education?”