Report
to the People
14th
October 2002
Education for All
As you may already know, in common with many of my former colleagues, I didn’t just leave the shipyards with a redundancy cheque. I also left with permanently damaged hearing.
I am fortunate, though. Thanks to the IRH, I have a small hearing aid which allows me to communicate normally most of the time. And having a device which gives you the gift of selective hearing loss does have its advantages – indeed I have long said it is the key to a long and happy marriage. (As, funnily enough, has my wife.)
But straining to follow a conversation in a noisy room, or needing to turn the television up a notch or two is nothing compared to the problems faced by those with more profound hearing problems.
It is to help us better understand these issues that the Inverclyde Deaf Forum last week held a whole host of events to mark British Deaf Association Sign Language Awareness week.
One such event was the "Heartstart" course presented in sign language at the Garvel Deaf Centre last Monday. I was glad to be able to join Garvel pupils and those from Gourock High for the event and was, as I always am when I visit the centre, made acutely aware of the support and attention these children need. I am also taken aback at how quickly the pupils respond to the dedicated specialist support staff. It is the staff’s hard work to help the students realise their potential which gives them the opportunities many of us take for granted.
A number of the staff and pupils, however, did raise some concerns over whether children with special educational needs would get their fair share of the investment which is going into schools across Inverclyde. Will, they asked, specialist support remain?
A good point. And one I put to the Education Minister, Cathy Jamieson, in the Scottish Parliament later in the week.
The Minister assured me that special needs pupils will share in this extra funding and was clear that teachers who are working with youngsters such as those at the Garvel Centre should still require a specialist qualification.
In an era when school students throughout Inverclyde (and indeed Scotland) are set to have their learning environments radically improved, it is only right that children with special educational needs should see a similar transformation.
They can’t – and won’t – be left behind.
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