Visually impaired learners struggle to get training in vital life skills
MINISTER of Education Kader Asmal’s recent calls for ”sensitivity and provision” for the needs of special learners has a way to go before it is met, if the current problems facing blind learners are anything to go by.
There is much that sighted people take for granted: we can see when the traffic light is red, we can see the open manhole ahead, we can see the landmark that tells us where we are.
Stepping out: Practising with model city streets in the classroom prepare the blind for an independent life.
photo: julia grey
But for blind people the tricks of getting around safely have to be learnt. And the people who teach these vital skills, mobility instructors, are in drastically short supply. For the estimated 240 000 blind people in the country, there are all of 38 trained mobility instructors.
Sam Boshielo, who heads up the department for the deaf and blind at Sibonile school in Kliprivier, south of Johannesburg, says ”mobility training is essential for people who are blind to be able to move safely from place to place”. Among other skills, either totally or partially blind people are taught how to use the white cane to detect the layout of the terrain they are walking in, how to time crossing roads and negotiating traffic lights, and how to use all their other senses as keenly as possible to make them fully aware of their environment. As much as learning to read and write Braille, these are the skills that give the blind the confidence and independence to live their lives to the full.
However, there is no resident mobility instructor at Sibonile school. Boshielo attributes this lack to the fact that the government does not designate a post specifically for a mobility instructor.
Worse still, a recent opportunity for two teachers to be trained as mobility instructors went begging: having been accepted on the year-long course, the two were unable to attend because no substitute teachers could be found to fill in for them.
Moira Higgarty, principal of the orientation and mobility school at the South African Guide Dogs Association for the Blind, where the teachers were to be trained, echoes Boshielo: ”I don’t understand how you can not provide an essential skill [to the blind].”
The situation is as dire at Filidelfia school in Soshanguve outside Pretoria. Principal Willem van der Merwe says that the school’s mobility trainer died in 1988, and due to continual cuts in teaching staff, no teacher has been able to be spared to go for training in this essential field. ”We can’t cope without one,” says Van der Merwe.
Gauteng Department of Education representative Lebelo Maloka says the department ”gives a chunk of funds to [special needs] schools”, and that ”their schools’ governing bodies are expected to work out the budget”. However, if you consider that a single Braille book costs between R800 and R1000, it is hardly surprising that there are no resources to spare.
This critical gap is currently being at least partially filled by a private organisation, the South African Mobility for the Blind Trust. Founder Ian Hutton, himself a blind man, describes the situation as ”diabolical because it’s one of the most basic things for kids in particular — it’s a part of their development towards being equal with other people. This flows from self-esteem and a positive image of yourself in the eyes of others: that you’re able, you can get to places, you can do things for yourself.”
With only two trainers, the trust has so far reached the townships, rural areas and schools in five provinces — three of which have no mobility instructors whatsoever. One of the trainers, Nikiwe Mkhonza, is currently ”on loan” to Filidelfia school for three to four months — which is how long it typically takes to teach the skills to blind learners.
Grade 9 student Martha Matlatsi says ”sometimes if you go far away alone you feel shy. Some of [the public] cheat us.” She describes how mobility training has boosted her confidence: ”We use the cane because it helps us to find the way and not get lost. If you want to cross the road, people can also see you are blind because of the cane. If they ask, I say, ‘No, you mustn’t help me because I can do it myself. I know the way.”’
As Hutton puts it, knowing how to get around alone ”is life after blindness”.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, April 10, 2000.