Providing Decent Education For Persons With Disabilities, Social Minister Risma Urges Local Governments To Build Inclusive Schools

Social Minister Risma in Babylon (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini (Mensos Risma) encouraged local governments to start building inclusive-based schools to provide decent education rights for people with disabilities in their respective regions.

"For the problem of children with disabilities or special needs, the authority is in the Ministry of Social Affairs and we have conveyed it to the Minister of Education to follow up on the problem of the lack of children with disabilities getting this educational service," said Risma in Mentok, West Bangka Regency, Bangka Belitung. , Between, Saturday, December 18th.

This was said by Minister Risma during a visit to Mentok, West Bangka Regency, in a series of activities to commemorate the 2021 National Social Solidarity Day (HKSN).

According to him, the issue of the importance of providing proper education for children with disabilities has also been conveyed to the Regent of West Bangka so that later it can be followed up in the area.

"We at the Ministry of Social Affairs are also ready to provide training to inclusive school teachers on how to handle children with special needs," he said.

In a number of areas, children with special needs of primary school age usually do not want to go to school or their parents do not want to send them to school because the availability of special schools (SLB) in the area is limited and they are quite far from their homes.

For this reason, regions need to encourage schools at the sub-district level to become inclusive schools so that children with special needs can get proper education, especially at the elementary school level.

"I have done that in Surabaya. So now in Surabaya, there are many inclusive elementary schools," he said.

According to Risma, the availability of inclusive schools is important, at least for the elementary school level, because there are rules for the maximum distance that elementary school age children must travel.

"There are rules for the distance traveled by children's schools, for elementary schools, junior high schools and high schools the coverage is wider. Now for the elementary level, the distance can be shortened by preparing inclusive schools so they don't have to go to special schools," he said.

The availability of inclusive schools will also reduce the government budget because it is very expensive to build special schools at the sub-district level, even though there are only a few children with special needs.

"It is better to prepare inclusive schools in each sub-district," he said.

Inclusive schools are places where children with special needs can participate in learning with regular normal students with special assistance from teachers during teaching and learning activities.

With inclusive schools, it is hoped that there will be equality of children with disabilities with normal children, education that teaches togetherness and eliminates discrimination.