Minister Blade Nzimande will address needs of blind students

Challenges facing visually impaired learners are no secret. These challenges are magnified to a greater extent within the FET and HET sectors where only a select few visually impaired learners have access to any kind of tertiary education and training.

The South African National Council for the Blind held a successful meeting with the Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Nzimande, and other high level staff. The challenges facing visually impaired students were discussed and the minister expressed his disappointment at the lack of access to tertiary facilities experienced by these students. The minister Nzimande also indicated that a large portion of bursaries for visually impaired students, remained unapplied for.

Minister Nzimande has promised to look into the challenges and to ensure that visually impaired learners are afforded greater access to further or higher education.

The Petals, a charitable club contacted Council recently. They held an event collecting money for charitable causes and wanted to donate braillers to a school in Pretoria.

Council facilitated the handover of five Perkins Braillers (in layman's terms a typewriter typing in Braille) to Prinshof School for visually impaired children.

They also donated wheelchairs to physically disabled children.

Thank you to the lovely Petals ladies for thinking of blind children and for giving them the tools to become literate.

We at the South African National Council for the Blind are very passionate about literacy and therefore embraces the government’s literacy campaign by sharing our expertise with them to ensure the best possible outcome.

Kha Ri Gude is a national campaign intended to provide millions of South Africans with the opportunity to become literate.

In 2008 at the start of the campaign various individuals with expertise in Adult Education and Training were seconded from their respective organisations and institutions to the National Department of Education to run the Literacy campaign. These individuals include:

• Dr. Obert Maguvhe – SA National Council for the Blind
• Prof. John Aitchison – University of KZN
• Prof. Veronica McKay – UNISA
• Mr. Mzwandile Matthews – Department of Education – Chief Director
• Mrs. Marietta Du Toit – Department of Education – Finance Directorate

For the purposes of clarity we need to define what secondment is:
A secondment is where an employee temporarily changes job roles within the same company or transfers to another organisation for an agreed period of time. Secondments can be to organisations within the private or public sector, or to a non profit making organisation, such as a charity or government body.

Dr. Obert Maguvhe has been formally seconded to the National Department of Basic Education since 2008 when the Campaign began and will be under secondment until the project ends. He however, still contributes to the work of the SANCB in terms of his field of expertise in Special Needs Education for visually impaired persons.

Dr. Obert Maguvhe is the Director of Special Needs for the Kai Ri Gude Literacy Campaign. This involves the following duties and responsibilities:

• Identifying learners with special needs
• Training of facilitators
• Assessment of portfolios
• Development of accessible learning teaching support material (LTSM)
• Monitoring and evaluation
• General Administration

We requested that Dr. Maguvhe maintain constant contact with the SANCB, so that he would be kept abreast of developments within our organisation, as well as providing expertise and guidance at our Education Desk. This mutual agreement does not extend financial advantages to the incumbent nor does it have any financial leverage on the SANCB as an organisation. In other words there is no financial benefit to either party.

It should be noted as a matter of fact that the SANCB does not have any administrative or financial authority of the Kha Ri Gude Literacy Campaign.

Recruitment of personnel, training, supervision and payment of stipends are handled by the campaign office and all enquiries on the campaign should be forwarded to Dr. Obert Maguvhe (012 452-3811) or Prof. Veronica Mckay (012 357-3797).

The SANCB is releasing this statement since there seems to be some confusion and a perception that we are responsible for the campaign. We want to clear the air as stated above: we do not control the campaign, however, we encourage all blind and partially sighted people to participate in the campaign in order to improve the quality of life of our disadvantaged brothers and sisters.

Jace Nair
National Executive Director
SA National Council for the Blind

On 30 July 2011,  the Computer Literacy and Braille students graduted from Optima College at a lovely ceremoney presented by the Social Development Division of the South African National Council for the Blind.

The SANDF band entertaied the students, relatives, Council staff and dignitories to light music. The students also sang joyous songs to entertain the guests:

Here is a video of Lucy Mphaphuli's address at the graduation:

Letter received from  Jeremy Opperman - addressed to the I-Opener (Council's monthly newsletter)
Sent: 17 February 2011

"Dear I-Opener

I would like to reiterate my deepest concern About the reference to Blind Matriculatns made in the last I Opener.

Jace you may remember last year we had this conversation, but I was saddened to see another  reference to this matter in a similar jocular style in the last I Opener.

The fact is that there is absolutely nothing to congratulate ourselves about in terms of the truly horrific matriculation results of Blind kids. It must be remembered that most people, and many readers of  I-Opener have no real appreciation of the reality of disabled education - let alone that provided for the blind.

Therefore they are completely lulled into numbed complacency  with jocular up beat little stories of matriculation success.  Also, imbalanced accounts like this which fail to refer to all the other schools who had matriculations sends a confusing and dangerous message.  I-Opener should be writing in the most critical and sobering way flying metaphorical half mast flags about this very, very serious state of affairs, NOT congratulating  anything.

Certainly, and I speak from very recent experience, with my own sighted daughter passing matric last year, all matriculants deserve congratulations - especially those who did very well. However, it must be done in the shocking context that  exists:
1.    that far too few schools for disabled learners, including blind learners, don’t offer matric at all or offer very diluted dumbed down matrics;
2.    That too many learners leave school  before matric, either because their school does not offer it or because they are actively discouraged from finishing by unscrupulous teachers too lazy to provide appropriate education.

Why does I-Opener , as probably the widest read blind subject matter magazine, not open some eyes by doing a little research into the truth:
1.    How many blind or mixed disability schools are there in SA?
2.    How many per province?    
3.    How many offer matric?
4.    How many offer a science or maths or Bachelor matric?
5.    How many blind matriculatns are there in SA, and in each province?  
6.    How many pass?
7.    How many blind matriculants sought their matric in mainstream schools or colleges?
8.    How many blind and partially sighted kids are there in SA really? (I suggest that global WBU  sort of stats are used to make this kind of estimation rather than the usual transparently spurious drivel from Stats SA which we still see too much of.)
9.    Compare the two, and hang our heads in shame.

If we don’t open people's eyes to the truth, then we cannot expect them to understand why a change to the status quo is an imperative. 

Jeremy Opperman"

Relply from Jace Nair - Council's National Executive Director

"Dear Jeremy

Greetings and best wishes.

Your comments made in this email and in our previous discussions is taken seriously. I would just like to list some of the processes we initiated during the past fifteen months. These may not necessarily be in any date or priority order.

Your concerns was discussed with the manager of our Education and Training Division, SANCB Education Committee and at the NEC (National Executive Committee). We even raised the issues, not necessarily indicating that it came from you, at the joint meeting of Blind SA Education Committee, Braille SA and SANCB Education Committee meeting. The matter was also tabled at the meeting with the DDG of the Department of Basic Education in October last year.

Arising from these initiative and advocacy undertaken by other NGO’s and individuals, the DBE has accepted many of the resolutions submitted by Council to them. The first major step was the recent capacity building education workshop organised by the DBE in Johannesburg. All 22 special schools in our sector were invited – represented by the principal and two representatives from the SMT, district and provincial officials of the department. The DBE has a report on their investigations. Other recommendations from this report is to be finalised during the next year. Issues around; admission, hostel, transport, ltsm, curriculum – Braille o & M, adaptation of workbooks, exams, etc.

We also wrote to the Minister of Basic Education and sent out an open letter to the media. The DDG of DBE informed us that the minister had directed the department to address the concerns raised. Other issues of learner abuse was also taken up. We have also taken up these matters with the Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities.

So you see we have taken your constructive criticism seriously. With your permission, I would like to request Madalein to include your original email with my reply to be published in the next edition of the I-Opener, alternatively, you write a piece for the publication.

Regards
Jace"