In order to activate sections 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the 2018 Prohibition Act, the Executive Secretary, National Commission for Persons With Disabilities, Mr James David Lalu has advocated for the actualization of scholarship schemes for students with disabilities especially, at higher Institutions.
Lalu made the appeal during a courtesy visit to the Federal Ministry of Education. In his remarks, he highlighted that section 17 of the Act is explicit about the unfettered rights of PWDs to Education without any discrimination or segregation.
“Accordingly, all public schools, whether primary, secondary or tertiary shall be ran with unalloyed inclusivity and structured to be accessible to Persons With Disabilities”, he cited.
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Speaking further, he noted that accessibility is very key to an inclusive Education. According to him, he had reasons on many occasions to intervene in cases of deprivations to access to education due to non compliance by some Institutions which afterwards yielded positive results.
Lalu further encouraged Federal government’s offices such as TETFUND to ensure that scholarships to Persons With Disabilities are timely funded in order to aid the reading and studying culture within the community.
Speaking further, he decried the ill- treatments by some Unity Schools who decline admissions to wards with disabilities, thereby, increasing the burdens on parents and guidance.
In his response, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Andrew David Adejoh expressed gratitude to the Executive Secretary for not relenting in his pursuit for better living for Persons With Disabilities.
While responding to the demands by the Commission’s helmsman, the Permanent Secretary promised to look into every case of admission denials.
“I want to assure you that no intending students will ever be deprived of admission as long as they are qualified” he reassured.
