Education of Children with Mental Handicap In Mozambique
By Francisco Manuel Tembe (famod@kepa.co.mz)
In Mozambique there are no statistics concerning the number of children with mental handicap as there are for the other categories of disabilities. However, to talk about mental disability in Mozambique, continues to be a very complicated question , since the majority of society continues to see this issue as myth and taboo, which nobody is supposed to talk about.
When a child with mental handicap is born into a family, this is the origin of great problems for the parents, who feel penalized and very frustrated without knowing what to do concerning the child. Normally, such a family runs the risk of being rejected, marginalised and also stigmatized within the community where they live.
Mythology about the causes of mental handicap
Even today, communities continue to point to the causes of this kind of disability as follows:
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As problem resulting from sorcery which could come from neighbours or from their own extended family of the husband or wife, motivated by vengeance or jealousy;
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As God's penalty for the husband or the wife having committed sins or due to sins committed by their relatives;
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Someone, usually the husband, used traditional drugs from the sorcery in order to have a family rich and powerful within the community;
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As a result of bad spirits brought by the wife from her family. This point of view can bring about the separation of the family, with the result that the child with mental handicap, seen as the cause, remains only in care of the mother. Once the wife is out from the husband's house, she may be marginalized by the original family and even by neighbours;
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Persons with mental handicap are often seen as mentally demented and there are cases where these children are abandoned by their parents, taken as orphans to the psychiatric hospitals at a young stage, where they stay without any prospect of a definitive home.
In general, however after the birth of a child with mental handicap, the parents often become very embarrassed and may not know how to look after the child. Sometimes the child can even die because the parents do not how to feed him or her.
Although there are no data related to these matters, we in the disability movement have observed that due to lack of knowledge from the parents about how to deal with these children and also the scarcity of heath infra-structures and adequate personnel, it is not unusual that these children die at an early age and do not reach adulthood.
Education
Considering education for people with mental handicap, we need to examine the situation in two ways, the informal and formal point of view.
Due to discrimination and marginalization where people with mental handicap are concerned , these persons do not participate in traditional rites, or receive the necessary information for their physical, psychological and social development and the gradual integration in the life of the family and/or in the life of the community.
Thus leads them to behave differently from the standards of their communities and consequently they are seen as mentally unstable or as "patients." Concerning the formal education, there is a need to underline that there is only one school in Mozambique for people with mental handicap. It is located in " greater " Maputo, with capacity for 60 children, but actually has been serving more than 100 children.
In this school the children are educated up to standard seven. Normally, children spend two years in each class and when they finish this level and depending on their luck and age, some are included in inclusive schools. Others remain at home without anything to do because they do not get jobs due to the attitudes of the employers; they may from lack of stimulation then return to illiteracy.
On the other hand, children with mental handicap may fail several times in the same class, due to lack of awareness and weak methodology of training of teachers about how to deal with these children in inclusive classes. Additionally there is a lack of adapted and flexible curriculum.
However it should be noted that the national policy concerning persons with disability states that the education system must guarantee to the person with disability, in general and to the people with special needs education, in particular, access and to and integration in specialized schools, paying attention to appropriate pedagogical, technical and personnel considerations.
This goal is still far from being achieved. We must take into consideration that teachers and the curricula are not yet adequate to the specific needs of these children. In addition, the environmental conditions of the regular school is not yet adapted for the access of this social group and these schools have too many students-- between 60 to 80 in average, in each class.
Inclusive education project began in 1999
The inclusive education project started in Mozambique in 1999 and has as its slogan " To combat exclusion, to renew the school." It has the following objectives:
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To increase access to basic education
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To improve the quality of education
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To reinforce capacity building and in this aspect the Ministry of Education underlines the need for expansion of eudcational opportunities for children with special needs
Therefore, the children with special education needs are those children who have some difficulties in learning or other children who are excluded from the regular system of education, including those with disabilities. According to the Ministry of Education, 120 children with mental handicap were enrolled in the inclusive classes in 1999.
For Mozambique as a poor country, the idea of inclusive education is welcomed by people with disabilities because it tries to give them more opportunities of access to education and also to combat the discrimination and marginalization. Nevertheless, it fails in fact, because there has not been sufficient attention to creating appropriate technical or methodological conditions nor to training personnel who can improve the socialisation and teaching processes of these children.
As a way of minimizing the worst situation of discrimination and marginalization facing disabled children, the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare started in 1997 a pre-school project integration for the children with disability in regular pre-schools. Unfortunately, this project was stopped due to lack of funds, although it was very important in providing socialization for the children and also because it seemed to give more time for the relatives to do other activities for the benefit of the families.
Another initiative, with the same aim of integration of people with mental handicap, comes from the Catholic church, which has integrated some children and young people into the psycho - social Rehabilitation Centre in Mahotas, in Maputo Town. In this Centre, children have access to physical and psycho -social therapy while the young people do activities in the field, such as caring for domestic animals, tailoring, and practice daily living activities.
At the same time, on an advocacy level, ACRIDEME - Parents and Friends Association for Children with Mental Handicap-is trying to find mechanisms to reduce the problems of this social group, while pressuring the Government to further take into account the needs of people with mental handicap.
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