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INTRODUCTION
This itinerant teaching programme
in Malawi started in 1983 in Lilongwe district with one itinerant teacher
supporting two children with visual impairment. There are now sixty itinerant
teachers in Malawi supporting 1,239 children. In the programme an itinerant
teacher, trained in working with blind and low vision children, identifies
the children in a catchment area and then places them in their nearest
local schools where they learn alongside their sighted peers. The purpose
of introducing the itinerant teaching programme was to get away from the
traditional provision based special schools and resource centres because
it was felt that not all children with vision problems needed residential
settings. The number of children with visual impairment which one teacher
supports varies from one itinerant teacher to another, depending on a
number of factors such as the needs of the individual child and the number
of schools around being visited in the catchment area. Currently the minimum
number of children with visual impairment supported by one itinerant teacher
is five while others are supporting up to forty children.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ITINERANT TEACHER
Enock Kabvina, thirty-eight years
of age is an itinerant teacher working in the suburbs of Blantyre a large
city which was the former capital of the country. On a usual working day,
Enock wakes up at around 6.00 a.m. to prepare for the day's work. Today,
he is visiting four pupils in three different schools. He starts off at
about 7.00 a.m. to cycle the 4 km distance to Masala Primary, the first
school on his programme. Patuma Halida is 10 years old and attending class
3 at Masala where Enoch has planned to do visual training with her for
about one hour. There are sixty pupils in standard 3 at Masala including
Patuma. At 8.45 am. Enoch packs his bags and takes leave of Patuma to
the next school, which is just across the stream, about a kilometer away.
At 9.00 a.m. Enock meets Mr. Kadaya the standard 7 class teacher at Namatapa
Primary where Jani Loti and Mary Gauti are the two children with visual
impairment in the class of eighty pupils. Mr. Kadaya reports to Enock
that Jani had problems in his Maths while Mary didn't do very well in
her English exercise of the day. The itinerant teacher decides to withdraw
the pupils one at a time to assist them with the problems they encountered
in the respective subject areas. The revision work subject takes more
time than Enock anticipated. By 11.00 a.m. the itinerant teacher arrives
at the Islamic Community Day Secondary School where Josephina Mtamula
of form 1 has just been prescribed new glasses. Enoch spends most of his
time to talking to the class teacher about Josephina and her new glasses.
By noon, Enoch leaves the school for home, and arrives home around 1.00
in the afternoon. He will then have lunch, rest for while, and later in
the afternoon plans to visit the Gama family who have a three year old
girl who is blind. Enoch makes regular visits once in a while to the Gama
family to introduce various play activities for the
young boy and advise the parents on how best they can prepare the boy
for school. The teacher completes his days work at 4.30 in the afternoon.
This is only one sample of the itinerant
teacher. It was possible to visit up to three schools because the schools
visited on this particular day are close to each other and needs of the
pupils are not complex. When Enock is visiting a pupil who has severe
visual problems at St Kizito Primary, which is 6 km away from his home,
he starts off much earlier and spends more time at the school, at times
the whole day, depending on his workload.
DISTRIBUTION OF ENROLMENT
The itinerant teaching programme operational
in 11 district of Malawi. The introduction of the programme has provided
more children with visual impairment access to basic education. At the
close of the last school session, there were 1628 blind and visually impaired
children in all the educational programs for children with visual impairment
and of these 1239 were in the itinerant teaching programme.
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Enrolment as at December 2002 |
Programme |
Blind |
Low Vision |
Total |
Resource Centres Units |
197 |
117 |
314 |
Residential Schools |
38 |
37 |
75 |
Itinerant Teaching Programme |
51 |
1188 |
1239 |
Total |
286 |
1342 |
1628 |
Table showing the distribution of children with visual impairment.
ADVANTAGES OF THE ITINERANT TEACHING PROGRAME
Results of
the programme over the years have demonstrated that there are several
advantages to itinerant programmes over the residential settings. The
most outstanding of these include the fact that;
- The learner is within the local environment
in the company of parents, brothers and sisters and local community at
all times as he operates from home to school.
- The classroom atmosphere is always conducive
as the learner is in the company of other children from the neighbourhood,
those he already knows and plays with at home.
- The sighte peers readily accept the blind
and visually impaired amidst them since they have known him for some time
even before starting school.
- The community takes the responsibility
of the needs of both the sighted and visually impaired children of the
local school in developmental planning.
LIMITATIONS OF THE PROGRAMME
- The blind visually impaired children with
additional handicaps might not benefit from the programme.
- The support from regular class teacher
to the blind and visually impaired might be difficult in situations of
large class enrolment.
- The mobility of the itinerant teachers
who rely on push bikes is restricted and this limits the schedule of visits
to the schools that is possible.
- Adverse weather conditions and the nature
of the terrain of the catchment area might affect the performance of the
itinerant teacher.
CONCLUSION
The itinerant teaching programme in Malawi
needs to be encouraged as results have indicated that more children with
visual impairment can benefit from the service. More itinerant teachers
should be trained and deployed to the existing programme districts to
reduce the distances currently covered by the serving itinerant teachers,
and with more teachers, extend the service to other remaining educational
districts of Malawi. |