Principal: "Schools for disabled should be free"

This was according to Michael Cook, principal of the Astra School for pupils with special needs in Montana in Cape Town, who said this was especially so when it came to transportation needs for persons with disabilities.

He said the Dial-a-Ride public transportation service which the City of Cape Town offered was a great concept, but “there are too few vehicles” within the city to accommodate persons with disabilities.

Cook, who doubles as a bus driver for the school, and who has been at the helm of Astra School for 22 long years, lamented how “public transportation is not accessible for persons with disabilities” in the country.

This, he said, was one of the biggest infrastructure gaps that needed to be bridged to accommodate a variety of needs.

He said accessible transportation for persons with disabilities was not a luxury, but an essential need, especially when it came to travel logistics for attending a job interview, or seeking medical care.

“How is a person in a wheelchair supposed to get on the trains?” he asked. Boarding buses he said, came with their own set of challenges.

Cook highlighted that accessible public transportation and a more reliable Dial-a-Ride service offering would also benefit ageing people who no longer found it easy to be as mobile as they once were.

Cook, who said he never expected to become a teacher, said the profession found him. He described his work with children with special needs was extremely rewarding.

“The children are fun, and I enjoy every minute,” he said. Each child had great potential to become successful.

Cook, who said he believed children with disabilities should be mainstreamed as far as possible, said: “You cannot just sit in your wheelchair, you need to put yourself out there – get out there and mix with other people.”

This was important to ensure that persons with disabilities integrated well into broader society.

Government has a lot of policies, he said, yet funding and implementing these policies continued to remain a challenge.

He said legislation that dictated that companies employ a certain number of persons with disabilities was “not happening” because government needed to be more firm on this policy.

“Government must lead the way” he said. Companies should be penalised if they did not adhere to polices government put into place he added.

Cook said the recent no fees for students movement and government’s response to the crisis should include students with disabilities.

He said while there were no fee schools for able-bodied children, “there should be a no fees policy for special schools that cater for people with disabilities”.

“There are some poor families whose grants scarcely cover their needs, let alone the needs of a child with a disability,” he explained.

“Parents just can’t cope,” he said. Nappies alone for an incontinent child, he said for example, were incredibly expensive, and necessary to ensure these children maintained a sense of dignity.

Cook shared how schools for children with disabilities also struggled to make ends meet. Rates he said, were simply too high, and called on municipalities to help cover these expenses.

He said government subsidies that the school received, which was per capita, was not sustainable because “rates for electricity and water keep increasing each year.”

Cook believed that the money the school spent on rates “could be better spent on providing care to the children with disabilities” and consequently, give them a better quality education.