Rwanda’s education system is still illequipped to support children with disabilities, resulting in more than 1,000 of them dropping out of school over the past three years.

Various organisations dealing with the disabled mention poor implementation of policies, weak involvement of parents and guardians and a non-accommodative curriculum.

“We have policies in place, but the problem is implementation. Inclusive schools are supposed to hire teachers who have skills in teaching people with disabilities but the majority of them cannot even greet in sign language,” said the executive director of Rwanda National Union of the Deaf, Samuel Munana.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda shows that one in every 30 Rwandans below the age of 21 is disabled. The most common disabilities are visual, physical, intellectual and hearing impairment as well as speech and language.

According to Mr Munana, parents and guardians are also not actively involved in the education of their children with disabilities, while the curriculum does not meet their needs.

“Schools and universities are not well equipped to provide services for people with disabilities, but we improvise essential equipment,” said Emmanuel Ndayisaba, the executive secretary of the National Council of Persons with Disabilities.

He asked ministries to ensure that all schools are well equipped to ensure that no child is disadvantaged in the learning environment.

“Special needs education is complicated and requires more partners; we also call on the government to provide enough resources to the sector.

While the government has the will to support learners, many things fail during implementation,” said Mr Ndayisaba.

The situation is compounded by low funding for research on people with disabilities, “yet it is the core channel to generate data to help improve service provision to learners with disabilities," said Donatilla Kanimba, vice president of Rwanda Union of the Blind.

“There is also a need to reach out to rural areas with a focus on boys with visual impairments whom we found to be most affected, as well as conduct a nationwide study on disability prevalence for equitable resource allocation.”