Mr. Conrad Balig, Upper East Regional Program Manager of Youth Alive, a non-governmental organization, has said achieving the universal Primary Education by 2015 could not be realised if the disabled were sidelined.
Mr Balig said this at the opening of a five-day workshop for staff of the St. John's Integrated Senior High Technical School at Tono where staffs were equipped in the teaching of sign language in the school.
Both hearing impaired and the hearing are integrated in the school.
He said at a time when Ghana was making efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it was proper to support government to ensure social inclusion of all children with disability at the basic level to be part of the integration process.
Mr. Balig said Youth Alive was touched by the school's problem of getting teachers with requisite skills to teach sign language.
He said these challenges should not be that of government alone, adding that partnering the school to upgrade the teachers' skills was relevant.
Mr. Balig said the school, the first of its kind in northern Ghana where the deaf and dump accessed formal education with other students at the same time, was commendable thanking the Catholic Church for the foresight.
Mrs. Gemma Kazaresem, the Headmistress of the school, said the dream of the school was beginning to manifest with the skill upgrading workshop for the teachers.
She said the problem of interpreting what was taught in sign language to the hearing impaired became difficult.
Mrs. Kazaresem said the school had 168 students with 36 and 21 hearing impaired boys and girls respectively. It also has 54 hearing girls and 57 hearing boys.
Among other challenges the headmistress mentioned included the lack of equipment for practical lessons in the technical and vocational departments, compulsory science elective for the hearing impaired students offering the
vocational programme, lack of Information Communication Technology (ICT) materials and qualified teachers to handle the subject and absence of street lights.
She thanked the sponsors for the support and appealed to other benevolent organisations and individuals to come to the aid of the school.