‘Ring the Bell’ Campaign - get all children in school

The Samuel Wellington Botwey Foundation (SWEB), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has organised a programme to encourage abled schoolchildren and the physically challenged to attend school.

A programme dubbed: “Ring the Bell Campaign” was held to help integrate physically challenged children in mainstream schools.

It was also to create the awareness of the need for all children to be in school regardless of their condition.

During the ceremony which was held at the Osu Cluster of Schools, the school bell was rung repeatedly to draw attention to the need for every child to attend school.

The ceremony was also to symbolise a call on all physically challenged children who were not in school to join the abled ones in the classroom to study.

The programme, which is organised annually, was on the theme : “All children welcome in school”.

The Deputy Director of Supervision at the Accra Metro Education Office, Mrs Mabel Esi Asigbetse, urged the general public to assist in spreading the message about the need to send all physically challenged children of school age to the available special schools.

She said the Ghana Education Service (GES) had implemented an Inclusive Education Policy which allowed physically challenged children and others with special educational needs to join the abled ones in the classroom so that they could be assisted in their studies to enable them to develop their potentials.

‘We have intensified public education at the parents-teachers association (PTA) meetings and community durbars to curb negative societal attitudes towards physically challenged persons and those with special educational needs in our society,” Mrs Asigbetse added.

The Executive Director of the Samuel Wellington Botwey Foundation, Mr David Botwey, thanked their partners and sponsors for making the campaign a success.

He expressed the hope that at the end of the campaign, all physically challenged children would go to school and have the opportunity to study.