Children with Learning Difficulties in Ghana

SAP works with schools, teachers and parents of children with learning difficulties to help improve the learning outcomes of the children. SAP’s activities centre a lot on educating the environment of the child about the child’s learning problems. Learning difficulties are in Ghana often interpreted as spiritual issues or intentional behaviour by the child.

Though it is the official policy that all schools in Ghana should be inclusive, in practice many schools do not have the capacity to respond to the varied special educational needs of children. As a result, children with different needs are either kept out of school, or they drop out after a few years.

Beacon International School in Peduase is one of the schools SAP is working with to build the capacities of teachers on learning difficulties. The twebnty teachers from the basic school are being equipped on inclusiveness and learn teaching strategies they can use to teach children with learning difficulties learn better.

The training which is being organised in series covers a wide range of topics such as recognising signs of Specific Learning Difficulties in Children; Inclusive Education Policy; and Mapping of Needs.

Others are Basic Classroom Interventions; Planning of Interventions; Development of Intervention Plans and Implementation of Interventions.

The school leadership and the teachers respond positively to the training. Teachers actively discuss about children in their classrooms and how they can help them.