8 August 2012 Last updated at 11:17

Inclusive education for Ghana

Will schools in Ghana provide inclusive education by 2015?

Will schools in Ghana provide inclusive education by 2015?

The Ghanaian government has promised that all schools will offer an inclusive education for all children by 2015.

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Currently, inclusive education is not available within mainstream schools in Ghana and children with profound physical disabilities do not receive an education.

Inclusion by 2015 looks unlikely to happen according to Mandy Budge, Co-Founder of the Multikids Academy, an inclusive fee paying school in Accra, Ghana.

Education Director Mandy, a special needs education teacher from the UK, opened the school to offer an education to children of all abilities.

Discrimination

Although there are schools for the deaf and blind, there are no options for children with profound physical needs.

Often, those with severe disabilities are abandoned by their families who face discrimination from wider Ghanaian society.

These abandoned children often end up living on the streets or are housed in the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, where they live alongside adult mental health patients in poor living conditions.

Creating a model

Mandy Budge's school is pioneering a model for inclusion in Ghana. The school offers a UK based curriculum and offers teaching to both mainstream and children with needs.

The school adapted a European inclusive model with a strong child-centred approach to teaching rather than Ghana's traditional 'chalk and talk' method.

Working with occupational, speech and language therapists has given children with profound needs a chance to learn and communicate.

Multikids Academy has received praise from the Ministry for Education for their work, but the clock is ticking for the remaining schools in Ghana to follow suit by 2015.

A co-production between the BBC and The Open University.

Watch films from the Schools World Service about pupils Kofi and Sean who attend Multikids Academy in Ghana: A place for Kofi and A School with a Difference