By Hafsah Muhammed Ibrahim, WikkiTimes
The school, established in 1996, serves disabled children from six northeastern states but struggles with dilapidated facilities and minimal funding. Students often find themselves abandoned during vacations, and their parents viewing the school as a dumping ground. Facing severe infrastructure issues, lack of security, and insufficient resources, the school’s staff and students endure challenging conditions as government continues to look away.
Jennifer’s family had earlier decided to send her to a boarding school without her consent. She was informed of the decision just two days before she left. She was the only disabled member of the family and was treated like a burden. On the day, she had set out early with her father on a motorcycle and started the 30-kilometer journey from her village in Tula to Gombe, where the school is located. For the umpteenth time, she thought of the only N1,000 her mother had neatly folded into the pocket of her luggage, but her father had taken it just before they reached the school gate. The tears she was holding back finally washed down her cheeks.
Her train of thought was halted when a man appeared before her, asking her what was wrong. She explained that she was a new student here, using sign language and hoping he would understand. Fortunately for her, he was one of the teachers for the hearing impaired in the school. He took her to the school and registered her, even though she couldn’t pay the fees. She further explained to him how she ended up at the school gate, and he sympathized with her.
Such a scenario is typical for most of the students in the school, a teacher narrated to WikkiTimes, pleading anonymity. Isah (not his real name) said some of these students with disabilities come from very indifferent and carefree parents.
Like some other parents, Jennifer’s family did not show up on vacation day to pick her up, so she started out for Tula on her own. One of the teachers realized she was nowhere to be found, despite not being picked up by her family, so the school searched for her and found her trekking several kilometers away from the city.
Her parents were contacted, but her father did not show up for his daughter until he was reported to the police authorities. He later picked her up after six days and never brought her back to school again. That was the last time the school heard of her.
Corroborating the story, the Chairman of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA), Abdulkadir Baba Liman, narrated that parents hardly show up to pick up their wards on vacation days.
He said, “We are left with a good number of students on vacation day because their parents do not care to pick them up. They have turned the school into a dumping ground. We have to call them to come pick them up. Sometimes, they never show up, and we have to transport them back home using our own money.”
For many, this place is not just a school but a second home. With or without paying the school fees, the school is forced to accept students into the boarding school.
“The registration fee is only N1600. But most of the parents either can’t afford it or refuse to pay. So, they drop their children and wards at the school gate on resumption day and disappear. We have no choice but to accept them into the school. Some of these children are as young as seven years old,” Liman added.
The Special Education Centre, Gombe, was established in 1996, shortly after the creation of Gombe state. The center was designed to cater to children with disabilities who need special forms of education.
The school receives students and pupils from across the six states of the North-East geopolitical zone: Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, and Taraba.
WikkiTimes learned that the school started with 25 pupils who were enrolled in primary one at the premises of Government Arabic College, Gombe.
During the administration of late Governor Abubakar Habu Hashidu, it was transferred to its present permanent site in London Mai Dorawa area in Gombe metropolis.
The boarding school currently has a population of 606 students, with 200 enrolled in the primary school and over 400 students in the secondary school. The students are accommodated in six blocks of classrooms, one administration block, and four hostels, two for boys and two for girls respectively.
The school currently operates with a staff capacity of 50 teachers for the deaf, blind, and students with multiple disabilities. It caters to students from primary school stage to senior secondary education. Therefore, disabled students from the age of six to 18 attend the boarding school.
WikkiTimes paid a visit to the school, and hours of interaction with some of the staff who spoke under conditions of anonymity revealed the horrific reality unfolding within the four walls of the school if at all, collapsed fences count as walls.
Ruptured Walls, Perished Ceilings…
A glance at most of the classroom blocks reveals dilapidation. Rays of sunlight sneak through the cracked walls and roofless ceilings. The numerous classrooms that house the deaf and blind students lack furniture, apart from missing windows and doors. Broken desks and littered floors make up most of the classes.
The students not only have to study in a non-conducive environment, but come rain or shine, they are compelled to manage demarcated classes for their everyday learning amidst distraction and discomfort. One may also notice that the classes are not built to suit the needs of the disabled. According to one of their teachers, the school has to divide one class into six classes to accommodate the students.
Speaking on the condition of the infrastructure, our source said, “It is obvious from the staircase that has chipped off everywhere, even a fit person does not find it comfortable to use this path.”
Aside from terrible buildings, the eroded premises have also contributed to the bad state of the school. Blind students are left with no choice but to find their way around potholes every day.
“New blind students find it the hardest. You will find them falling around the premises. But with time, they become familiar with the environment and find their way on their own,” a Teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed.
The gully erosion has not only made it difficult for mobility but also made it impossible to have a recreational ground for the 600 students.
Looking Out For The Vulnerable, By The Vulnerable…
How does a person with special needs take care of another? “They have no choice,” was the short response the teacher gave. As time passes, one becomes familiar with the environment, so the senior students take care of the junior ones.
The special school has two hostels that serve as a boarding house for the male and female students. Both the visually and hearing impaired share the same dormitories but different blocks. A visit to the dormitory only accentuates dilapidation further. The compound has been inhabited by weeds and tall grasses, making it a safe haven for reptiles and other unwelcome creatures.
The window panes are missing in most of the rooms, and the students have to improvise with their clothing as curtains to shield their dorms in the little way they can. The dormitories are no different from regular dormitories, as they were not built to suit special needs. This is also the same for the toilets.
In the absence of patrons and matrons, most of the students are left to fend for themselves in the hostel, as senior students are assigned junior students to guide them. One may wonder how one disabled student takes responsibility for another in such an environment that is neither enabling nor conducive.
Students reportedly go about their daily routines in the hostel like an abled person would. Through aiding one another, they fetch water on their own, sweep, do their laundry, go to the kitchen to get their food and maintain the general upkeep of their dormitories.
The dirty and unkempt boarding houses speak volumes of how a disabled person would be able to maintain it. But in the absence of cleaners, they have no choice.
When asked, one of the staff confirmed that the toilets remain in worse condition, as they weren’t built to suit special needs, and are left to be cleaned by the students who find it difficult, especially the visually impaired.
Also, the school has no provision for cleaners to maintain the environment; therefore, it is left for the students to maintain their classes and hostel dormitories.
Open Defecation, Littered Sanitary Pads
“It takes more time for a blind to acquaint with his/her immediate environment than the deaf,” a teacher for the blind said. “So teaching them requires more time and patience.”
As earlier established, most of the students come from poor backgrounds; therefore, the girls of puberty age lack sanitary pads to stay hygienic during their menstrual cycle.
But most of the visually impaired who do have sanitary pads, find it difficult to dispose of them properly due to their disability, so they end up throwing used pads everywhere.
“It’s a disgusting sight to see,” one of the teachers testified. “You can’t entirely blame them. Most of them cannot even afford sanitary pads. For those that can, have limited knowledge of menstrual hygiene. Sometimes we get support from nonprofit organizations, but that is not sustainable nor is it sufficient,” he added.
Between The Disabled And Hovering Criminals In London Mai Dorawa
WikkiTimes in another interview with the state Chairman, the National Association For the Blind (NAB), Abdullahi Mohammed, who is also familiar with the condition of the Centre, said the hovering insecurity in London Mai Dorawa, the community where the school is situated, has further worsened its condition.
“It is a violent area where students are intimidated, and robbed,” he said.
This has exposed the vulnerable students to insecurity and exploitation. Cases of intruders invading the hostels to steal and intimidate the students have been recorded several times by the school in both hostels.
“An intruder once came to the male student to steal the mosque amplifier, but they caught the thief. This was because the door could not be locked. After all, sometimes there are sick students in the hostel during class hours. This happened during the daytime to tell you the extent of insecurity in this area,” he narrated.
Some of the youths in the community have made the school premises a permanent field to play football. They intrude on the school almost every evening. “We have tried several times to ward them off, but they claim it is government property and we can’t stop them,” he added.
The female students are the most vulnerable in this case, WikkiTimes learnt. The absence of security guards in the school and hostels has granted access to criminals from the Mai Dorawa community. The visually impaired, who pose as the most vulnerable, have been victims of attempted rape in the past. Cases of phone thefts and other valuables belonging to the students have also been recorded by the school. This has been fueled by the criminal nature of the environment where the school is located.
Also challenging for the Muslim girls is going to the mosque to pray five times daily, about 500 meters away from their hostels within the school premises. This short trip has become challenging because they are harassed by the boys or outsiders. Therefore, they had to be stopped from going to the mosque, and the school built a mosque for them in their hostel.
The NAB Chairman further narrated that the London Mai Dorawa area has reeked of criminal activities for a long time, and those criminals are taking advantage of the vulnerable students to raid, assault, or steal their belongings.
“A school should have at least two security guards to watch the students, but we have only one,” our source confirmed. “Not only is that inadequate, but the available watchman is a weak, elderly man who can’t ward off intruders, especially with the fenceless premises.”
The few teachers living on the campus (some of them disabled) are left to assist the guard and attend to the students should there be any criminal intruders in their hostels.
Even Facilities Are Not Safe
Not only are the students’ safety at stake, but even the school’s facilities are vandalized every day by these intruders. According to the school authorities, keeping expensive facilities in the school has become impossible as they are always robbed.
Even the electricity supply is not safe as wires and bulbs have been vandalized several times, leaving the school without electricity power. They are left with no choice but to only patronize these facilities outside at a fee when necessary.
Aside from worsening the security situation, the lack of electricity is affecting the students, especially the hearing impaired, at nighttime who need light to communicate among themselves.
In a plea for urgent help, the school authorities said: “We are calling on the government to move us out of this terrible community for the sake of our safety. The insecurity is taking a toll on our students, and they need to be rescued.”
Malnutrition, Insufficient Feeding Threatens Students
Students are offered three square meals per day. But the portion of food given to 600 students does.
As earlier narrated, most of the parents treat their wards nonchalantly, so they remain at school for a long time with nothing to support their feeding.
“The feeding was supposed to be special feeding, but the government does not provide it. For example, what you should feed a primary school pupil should be very nutritious. But what they give them here is not different from other regular foods.”
An insider who revealed a breakdown of the food provision in the school lamented that the amount of food allotted to the students for their three square meals does not suffice.
“Every month, we are given 32 bags of maize, 9 bags of rice, 2 bags of sugar, 2 bags of beans, and £100 to buy items like firewood and seasoning.
“Several times, the inadequate food has triggered riots. The food is grossly inadequate. We have to seek support to get fruits from outsiders to feed the students once in a while,” one of the school authorities said.
Hostility Amongst PWDs
Both categories of disabled students are sometimes hostile towards each other because disability is a complex thing, one of their teachers revealed.
According to him, because the school is understaffed, the few teachers are not always there to create a good rapport among them; therefore, the best they could do was to divide their hostels.
“For instance, when an external force strikes a blind man, he automatically assumes it’s a deaf person. This is so because they are more vulnerable, and the deaf sometimes takes advantage of them,” he explained.
Over time, the disabled have also created a coded language for themselves to communicate to identify strangers among them. That is just a defense mechanism they have done for themselves.
Water and Electricity
The water system of the school has since been vandalized by criminals. They had no water before until an individual personally contributed to digging a borehole. This has been sufficient for the school even though they have to struggle to maintain it frequently. The water tap was dug two years ago after spending over a million naira. Community residents also benefit from the water.
Before this, the school suffered from a lack of water, and the students suffered a lot. They had to pay a token daily to buy water for themselves. They also have to trek to fetch this water themselves from a nearby commercial tap water.
The Need For Teaching Facilities
The school is in dire need of a resource room for the blind students, including braille, Perkins, typewriters, and computers. But this must come with a stable electricity supply to support the use of the devices mentioned.
There is also a need for more resource persons and a curriculum designed to serve their needs.
“The Ministry of Education gives us regular school curriculums, and it’s of no use to us because of the peculiarity of our learners,” the authority narrated. “Once, we asked for mobility cane for blind men, but because of negligence, they brought king canes. Crutches were also brought because they didn’t even understand the nature of the student’s disability. They don’t care.”
However, they identified that even when provided with the appropriate facilities, there is a need to provide them with a security system to protect the devices as well as equip the teachers with the necessary skills to use them.
“Anytime we attempt to keep computers, they are vandalized. We spoke several times to the government to move us away from this environment due to the insecurity, but in vain.
“We have a thermoform machine for photocopying Brailles, but we can’t use it here. We also have an embosser (Braille printer), but our teachers lack the training to use it because the government doesn’t hold training for the teachers.
“Special education is outdated; we need inclusive education. We need to be taken to mainstream society and design a special curriculum to expand the horizon of the disabled,” he added.
School Dispensary
From a termly fee of N700 per child, the school cannot afford to stock up the dispensary with drugs; therefore, the sick bay only has beds. They depend on charity organizations to donate drugs but receive none from the government.
The school dispensary is handled by only two nurses. Emergency cases are treated at the nearby primary health care, but the teachers have to transport the students using their own money.
Despite Anonymity, Sources Fear The Unknown
Hours of interviews conducted during this report have gathered the voices of different people, especially insiders in the school.
But despite granting anonymity, they still fear a drastic reaction from the government. This fear has stemmed from a previous experience, they justified. According to them, security operatives had once stormed the school to warn the school authorities after pictures portraying the bad condition of the school were shared online by an individual who paid a visit to the center. This forced the school authorities to remain silent about the dire condition of the center to avoid consequences from the government.
Parents, Stakeholders Appeal For Help
Some of the parents of the students called on the government to pay urgent attention to the needs of the school, saying it is unfortunate that their children have to endure these challenges daily.
Bilkisu Mohammed, a mother to a senior student, Mahmud Idris, who spoke to WikkiTimes, confirmed that the school’s condition keeps deteriorating by the day and she is worried about the future of her child.
“My elder daughters who attended the school in the past had better experiences than my son. We have hosted charity organizations in the past, who even promised to reach out to the government on our behalf after hearing our pleas but nothing has been done.
“I am calling on our good government to do something about this school as it is our hope for our children with special needs,” she said.
Another parent, who simply identified as Maman Faiza, added that it is sad to see the center in such a bad state.
“For several years, our children have attended the center, but it is sad to see that it is not improving. We need the government to do something about it,” she said.
Furthermore, the NAB Chairman also appealed to the government to fulfill its duty by responding to the plea, saying, “We know the government is trying. But it needs to put more effort. Children with special needs need special attention.”
This report is produced with support from Civic Media Lab.
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