World Sight Day: School of Blind begs for adequate funding
News & Trends •
by felicia imohimi11 though we still lack a lot of facilities in the school but the school has really helped us she said1 mrs regina dung head teacher of the school made the appeal in jabi on thursday during a road walk organised by the nigerian optometric association noa in commemoration of the 2018 world sight day with the theme universal eyecare1 the news agency of nigeria nan reports that the world sight day is commemorated globally every second thursday of october1 the day was set aside by international communities to draw attention of governments and other stakeholders to the challenges facing the populace in respect to eye care1 the head teacher expressed displeasure that the school was poorly funded considering expectations to be met as well as the enormous challenges of the pupils1 on some of the challenges impeding quality academic performance in the school dung said they include lack of teaching aid inadequate funding and lack of conducive learning environment1 a book for the regular child goes for n50 while a brail paper for the visually impaired child goes for n35001 the environment is not conducive for the visually impaired people to move around independently so we solicit for government to come to our aid to improve their learning skills and well-being1 the management of school of the blind jabi fct on has solicited the support of government for improved funding to ensure academic excellence of the visually impaired pupils1 also 80 per cent of the visually impaired pupils are from poor socio-economic background and cannot afford the cost of these aids1 ordinary n5000 would have prevented majority of them from going blind but due to poor financial status of their parents they find themselves in this condition the head teacher said1 speaking on behalf of the pupils of the school blessing okon a visually impaired commended noa for counting them worthy to participate in the commemoration1 she however noted some of their challenges to include inadequate computers lack of brail machines and typewriters1 according to her if these machines are available in the school it will go a long way to aid their writing skills and capability1 when i got blind some years ago i thought all hope of schooling was gone1 i never knew that being handicapped does not deter anyone from forging ahead academically1 so if government is allocating one million naira to regular schools it should allocate three million to visually impaired schools this will enhance academic performance1