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I/ GENERAL, SOCIAL ATTITUDE
TOWARD BLIND PERSONS:
1) Prejudice on blind persons:
- Generally, it is said
that "disability means useless", and disability comes from the sin of the
parents in previous lives or the disabled individual's previous life; it
needs to be hidden. Therefore, people are not necessarily interested in
educating visually disabled persons to be independent and prevent them
from enhancing their potential.
- Traditionally people thought
that disability meant talent. This point of view makes blind individuals
sit down and expect help and lose their self-confidence.
- Many sighted students
in mainstream society are afraid of their blind peers and do not want to
get acquainted with children with visual impairments. According to one
of our interviews made in 1992 at Tri Tri primary ordinary school, in which
there were 126 interviewees, 48 answered: afraid.
2) Statistical figures:
- Vietnam population's 75
millions
- Blind persons 600.000
- Blind children under age
15: 6.000
- Blind students: 400/6000;
6,6%
- School for disabled children
with blind department 9
- School for the blind:
5
How to help blind children
afford schooling is important, but how to make them openly accepted in
ordinary school is much more important.
II/ CURRENT PROBLEMS:
1) School organizing:
1.1 - Time limited.
- Most students just come
to school for just one session (morning, afternoon, even in the evening).
Semi boarding schools are not constructed in accordance with the learning
requirement of students.
- Teachers must work hard
to complete heavy curriculum, so they are hesitated to spend extra time
with blind students.
1.2 - Teacher's appraisal system.
- Teachers must reach their
legally designated teaching target of how
many excellent, good and
average students for a school year to ensure their labor
criteria. If they admitted
a blind student, they would hardly assure their teaching
targets that they registered
from the beginning of the school year.
1.3 - Low income.
- Low wages make teachers
maintain at least one extra job to earn their living and cannot concentrate
their energy on their main job.
2) Library:
- There are no libraries
for the blind at the national level, there is no division of blind literature
as well.
III/ HOW TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION:
During the recent five-year
period, the school for the blind in HCM City has been working as a resource
centre in the South of Vietnam and we have done the following to partly
improve the situation:
I)Teachers in normal schools.
- Invite teachers from mainstream
schools to visit our institution in order to witness how visually impaired
children learn and host idea exchanging sessions, conduct educational/scientific
research studies on the integration of blind students in mainstream schools
to stimulate the public recognition and common sense of teachers, parents,
and people in community.
- Call teachers from the
mainstream schools, voluntarily working to help their sightless students.
Convince education officials
to agree to have a more flexible teacher appraisal system for teachers
who are working with the integrated education program, offer rewards to
them from charity funds at the end of each semester.
- Step by step, blind students
are admitted into normal schools. Teachers
4 gradually have changed
their attitude toward students with visual disabilities.
Through our recognized scientific
education research studies as well as mass-media, the integrated education
program has expanded to districts of HCM City and to other provinces in
the SouthernVietnam.
2) Students (blind-sighted-students).
- At the beginning sighted
students were ashamed and nervous of their blind peers. Thanks to the persuasion
of their schools and their class teachers, they have become more open-hearted
to make friends with their blind classmates and schoolmates. From that
foundation, their friendship and affection have improved, they have become
active helpers in class and in extracurricular activities.
- At first blind students
were less self-confidence and more shy in front of the public. We have
introduced good examples of the blind as well as blind models from Vietnam
and foreign countries to speak to them. Gradually, they have changed their
minds and have become more optimistic and are fond of learning at the mainstream
schools.
3) Parents
- We have held ideas and
experience exchange meetings between parents of sighted pupils with blind
students and their sighted peers with teachers from the blind school and
the mainstream institutions. Parents of sighted children contribute to
mobilize their children to follow blind examples.
4) Education officials
- Invite education officials
to visit our establishment and to visit the integrated education program
in overseas with the cooperation of CBM, CFBT.... the result, we have received
a warm and positive cooperation from them.
5) Mass media
- Annually, we organize
sport games, music performances at public places to show the achievement
of the blind and their potential to the public.
- Present activities of
the blind to radio, television, newspapers.
IV/ SUGGESTIONS
1) Open policy of education for all children, law of education and law of disabled people. Recently the Vietnamese Government has enforced the draft decree on people with disabilities.
2) Effort of blind people
to overcome policy difficulty and changing social attitude.
3) Establish a national
network of library for the visually impaired.
4) A regular program on radio,
television, or a feature in a magazine or
newspaper for people with
disabilities.