Disabled children in Jordan are deprived of their right to an education

Hammam Al-Asas - Oman

"The problem starts from school and extends for life," this was expressed by the mother of the twentieth with a physical disability Salsabil Al-Qaisi, as she was next to her daughter on the study bench, helping her to overcome the obstacles she faced, so there are no slopes that her chair can walk over, and no peers look at her. Without the stereotypical view that persons with disabilities are unable to live like others.

The mother of the young woman, born with complete mobility, recounted that many asked her to get rid of her daughter or surrender in front of attempts to raise her like other children, but she collided with the reality of schools that she tried to overcome as a surfer wrestling with a big wave.

And she said, "The kindergarten that we entered for her asked us a sum of money in exchange for transporting the bus to the chair, and when she reached the first grade we moved her to a private school, we thought she would feel comfortable and get a good education", but the school asked her for additional amounts - other than the school fees - to authorize the cleaning worker to provide what She needs help like entering the bathroom, which the family did not hesitate to do, but they threw money in their pockets and they called the mother every time the girl needed help.

Salsabeel's mother told Al Jazeera Net that government schools closed the doors to her daughter after she had finished her seventh year, refusing to receive her because she did not prepare for the handicapped, and the parents ’inability to bear the costs of private schools due to their exposure to exploitation.

After seeking help from the mother, the head of the “Supreme Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” called on Prince Maraad bin Raad bin Zaid to instruct schools to accept the child, so they opened the door to implement inclusive education, while the mother did not stop accompanying her daughter for years, to school and attending class classes so that she did not feel lonely Until the mother fell ill, he kept her in hospital and prevented her from escorting Salsabil, who was forced to drop out of school after pressure, including the lack of someone to help her, which forced her to give up her dreams at the secondary level.

The situation of the young woman Salsabil, is not different from that of the thousands of disabled people whose dreams stopped completing their school life and seeking a decent life, enabling them to depend on themselves, but the young mother of Salsabil, after she spent nearly twenty years of suffering, holds the Ministry of Education responsible for depriving Any student who fulfills his simplest dreams to complete his studies.

No government funding
In a government study, the Jordanian Department of Statistics stated that a third of Jordanian illiterates who are over 13 years old are disabled, while the Ministry's data for 2018 indicated that 92% of children with disabilities of schooling age in the Kingdom do not receive it in any way.

Hadeel Abu Soufa, activist and member of the Supreme Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said that these figures are dangerous, and she attributed the matter to the lack of unifying efforts between the work of institutions and focusing them on one side, and performing unorganized work, according to them.

Hadeel, who had an accident in her childhood that resulted in a physical disability, added that the teaching staff needs to adjust and build capacities, and the curricula of children with disabilities must be adapted.

It rejects the idea of ​​a merger in education, as the environmental preparation alone is not merging from its point of view, explaining the division of schools to those in which it finds a truly inclusive education in terms of treatment, preparation and awareness of the presence of the disabled, which drives it to request amounts that families are unable to pay, and to the government that Hardly any of them are available, they are limited to slopes for wheelchairs, and most of them remain uninformed.

Activist Hadeel confirmed that the council concluded an agreement with the Ministry of Education that extends for ten years or what is called the inclusive education strategy, noting that signing this agreement is an advanced step in the right direction and a victory for the rights of students with disabilities in Jordan.

The ministry is proud
For his part, Musa Ghneimat, director of disabled students' programs in the Ministry of Education, said that the goal is to raise the percentage of people with disabilities in schools from 1.9% to 10% during the next ten years, and indicated that the ministry serves twenty thousand disabled students, and acknowledged the kingdom's lack of prepared schools, As a number of them are rented, and old ones are not eligible for education.

However, during the previous press statements, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Muhannad Al-Azza, did not hide his fear from the implementation of the inclusive education strategy, as the special education budget in 2019 lacked any item on it, and "there is a fear that the current project will meet the fate of the national strategy for disabled people that It was launched during 2007-2015, as 50% of its goals did not see the light after four years of the deadline.