November 2017 – Oysters and Pearls

Computerized Devices and Text Books Helping Blind Students to Excel
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Computerized Devices and Text Books Helping Blind Students to Excel

“I am sure one of the six blind students sitting for national examinations will pass with distinctions.” The head of the Special Needs Unit at Gulu High School, Daniel Odoch expressed this firm conviction. Francis Ojukul, the coordinator of the VI department, had the same feeling.

For three and a half decades though, such optimism in the performance of the blind and visually impaired students at Gulu High School was non- existent.

In Uganda, education for Persons with Disabilities was started in 1952 by the Colonial Government. The special needs education services were for a few children with visual, hearing, learning and mobility challenges who were not gaining from the existing educational provision for regular children. However, Persons with Disabilities are still generally marginalized by beliefs and attitudes in society, and so developments in this ‘Special Education’ have been moving slowly since then.

The blind annex of the school was launched in 1986. But it was only five years ago, when Oysters & Pearls started sponsoring and giving study materials and tools to the blind, that the unit started producing first grades, both in internal and external examinations.

“Since 2012, we have registered at least a first grade in the national examinations,” said Mr. Ali Muzamil, a blind teacher of Commerce

Spelling quiz for blind students
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Spelling quiz for blind students

Increasing Knowledge of Blind Students through Spelling Quizzes and Group Revisions

Oysters & Pearls-Uganda has initiated a weekly quiz competition at Gulu High School to improve the grades of Blind Annex students.

The initiative, which was kicked off this year by Ojukul Francis (O&P-UG Project Coordinator), sets students in groups of four. Each group is comprised of students chosen from senior one up to senior six. The winning group gets a prize at the end of the session.

Students who are educated using a Brailler typically do not receive corrective feedback on the writing skills, including grammer and spelling, because their sighted teachers often cannot read Braille. Their spelling is poor as a result and words are written phonetically.

Nonetheless, they are enthusiastically joining in on quiz day to sharpen spelling and compete to answer questions from past exams to ensure the best possible performance on exams.

Francis says he received numerous complaints from the blind students that sighted teachers were not spelling words for them during class which is majority sighted, ignoring the fact that they cannot see the blackboard.

“The spelling quiz competition is not only making the students improve their spellings, but also to think fast, because each group is given only ten seconds to answer a question,” Francis said.

Odoch