The next government of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is to provide tax reliefs for working parents who have special needs children, to enable them pay for 24-hour care for the children while they are at work.

This is contained in the 2020 manifesto of the party titled: “People’s Manifesto: Jobs, Prosperity and more.”

Under the Special Needs Education section of the manifesto, the party said it will collaborate with the Paediatric Society of Ghana and parents to institute early medical screening for new-borns and pre-school children in order to identify children with special needs and address their challenges.

The party also promised to train more facilitators in specialized areas to effectively assist children with disabilities and monitor their growth, as well as provide modern assistive medical devices such as hearing aids and walking sticks to children with special needs.

The party further pledged to provide affordable special needs schools, significantly increase the budgetary allocation to special schools, expand existing areas of expertise beyond visual and hearing impairment, and also incentivise qualified special educators and other multi-disciplinary team members to forestall their high attrition rates.