It is Monday, 11.30a.m. and pupils of Ntinda School of the Deaf are taking measurements for new school uniforms. As I stare at them persistently, they keep running away and angrily pointing fingers at me.

With too much curiosity, I decide to call one of the pupils before she’s measured, just to test my sign language skills. Good enough the pupil comes. I start twisting my fingers up and down, not to mean anything but to ascertain whether this pupil would understand anything. Ummh! The girl just stares at me, then waves and runs for class.

In reaction to my poor sign language, the deputy head teacher, Daniel Kirya, explains that not everyone can use sign language unless trained to do so.

“UNEB has always employed people who know sign language to supervise these pupils during exams but there are no trained teachers to handle these children. They end up misled and some of them end up failing,” complains Kirya.

Kirya told Observer School that Ntinda School of the Deaf was founded back in 1959 when it was known as Uganda School of the Deaf, located at Namirembe. The school started with two pioneer pupils who were children of Julian Lule, a teacher then.

Lule saw the need for expansion as children started increasing day by day. Currently, the school has 210 pupils, 104 girls and 106 boys.
In 1989, the school relocated to Ntinda and took on a new name: Ntinda School of the Deaf.

Kirya said the primary aim of the school was to cater for the educational interests of the deaf. He notes that although the qualification for admission is deafness, the school admits several pupils with multiple disabilities. There are children who are deaf and physically handicapped, those who are deaf without vision, and others who are deaf with mental challenges.

Another complicated category is what Kirya refers to as the talented children. This is also a disability among these pupils because such children are hard to understand. They are quiet most times but they suddenly start fighting their colleagues and even break things around.

The criteria used for admission are that a child must be aged between six and 17, and must know sign language.

The school also runs a pre-school programme every Wednesday to introduce the pupils to sign language. Those who pass the sign language test join the school, at the end of November. Other pupils join through the special needs section in their former schools before being referred here.

AVERAGE GRADES

The academic performance of the pupils in this boarding school, according to Kirya, is average. They sit for the same exams as the other pupils. The syllabus too is the same.

There has been a continuous improvement since 1997 when only four pupils qualified to join secondary school. Last year, 11 qualified to join Universal Secondary Education (USE), out of 31 pupils who sat for PLE. In 2008, only five qualified for USE.

The school has produced some people who set a pace for the rest to prove that disability is not inability. Kirya reveals that several of their former pupils have joined universities and teacher training colleges.

Among the pioneer pupils are Peter Lule, who works with the Washington DC Treasury, Florence Nansamba, a lecturer in the USA, Maurice Senyonga, a lecturer at Kyambogo University, and Florence Mukasa who works with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.

“We get a lot of publicity but no one has ever come out to mention how our pupils are good at sports. In 2002, the school won the second runner-up trophy for environment competitions for Kampala District,” complains Kirya.

Being a government aided school, Ntinda School of the Deaf has several challenges. One challenge is shortage of teachers. The school has only 21 teachers to cater for over 200 students.

Kirya admits that teachers have been trained in how to handle these pupils but the problem is that some of them have multiple defects: they are not only deaf but also blind and crippled.

He also reveals that the government calls for one teacher per 10 pupils which is not practical as these pupils need a lot of personalised attention.

Ideally, each pupil would require a teacher to apply both sign language and body talk so that there can be total communication for the pupil to understand.

The school also experiences congestion in dormitories and classrooms. Kirya says Shs 1 million is spent on each pupil every month. This translates into Shs 3 million per term.

Some parents are not supportive either because even the little money they are often requested to contribute is not paid. This has made the school continue to accumulate debts.

Many children find difficulty interpreting English terms, so they need a teacher to always guide them. Yet sign language itself is not easy as some cannot see.

Such problems have led the school administration to plan for a vocational centre in future so that the deaf can acquire skills. The school would offer courses such as Carpentry, Tailoring, Bricklaying and Hairdressing.

Other plans include expansion of classrooms and dormitories to accommodate the increasing numbers.
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