PARENTS are disappointed in the government’s health and safety guidelines for schools for children with special needs, which are identical with those for regular schools.

Al Abror Mohd Yusof, father of an autistic child, told The Malaysian Insight that the government should have formulated a different set of guidelines for children with special needs.

Al Abror, who sends his 17-year-old child to Sekolah Pendidikan Khas Vokasional in Kuantan, said the government has also confused and burdened parents of such children by failing to 
provide clear information about the reopening of school.

“The minister took the trouble to announce the reopening of normal schools two weeks beforehand, but only four days before the reopening of special needs vocational schools. Also, it was in the middle of the week, not even Monday.

“Try to imagine the challenge faced by parents who have to prepare their kids for school. For some of them, it is very hard to apply for work leave. Worse, some suffer from financial difficulties,” he said.

Education Minister Mohd Radzi Md Jidin announced that primary and secondary schools will be reopened in stages on beginning July 15.

The announcement came a week after classrooms reopened for Forms 5 and Form 6 students, who are sitting for public examinations. 

During the press conference, Radzi did not announce the guidelines for schools for special needs children. He said they would be issued later. 

As they are yet to be forthcoming, the schools have had to adopt the standard guidelines for regular schools.

Persatuan Kanak Kanak Istimewa Kajang director Kong Lan Lee, said that the centre has asked parents to begin teaching their kids at home to wear masks and wash their hands two months ago. 

“It is quite challenging because we are aware that special needs children are different from normal children. We ask that parents train them at home even though it is hard to do so. 

“From these exercises we can see that these children have difficulty accepting the guidelines and we are trying our best to solve the issue,” he said at the reopening of the centre this week.

Because of this, the centre for now is only open for adult students, of which there are 58. They are divided into two classes. 

“There are also some SOP that we have to add ourselves according to the needs of these children. For example, in this centre we extend the length of social distancing to six metres.

“Hygiene is highly emphasised such as bringing their own towers, clean fingernails and cancellation of all group activities in school,” he said. 

A teacher at Persatuan Kanak-Kanak Istimewa Bangi, Hazimah Zakaria said it is a challenge introducing children with special needs to new routines.

Hazimah said how well a child copes depends on how old they are.

“At our centre, for example, there are pupils ranging from primary school age to 20-year-old adults. We can see that the adults learn more easily than the children,” she said.

Hazimah said the association is having trouble with the social distancing rule which has required the centre to hold three sessions a day to accommodate all its 50 pupils.

“As we are committed to implementing social distancing, we have no choice but to divide the sessions into three, whereby each session is limited to three hours. 

“Hence, we also offer the parents the choice of teaching their kids at home but that requires active parental involvement.” – July 5, 2020.