Access to productive life and employability by persons with disabilities

Abstract

The question of what persons with disabilities (PWDs) are capable of doing in their adult life, has remained a topical issue world over. This is so since some people erroneously believe that with a disability, one cannot operate efficiently in society. It is for this reason that PWDs have not been prepared enough for any productive future life. The truth being told, it is not enough and obviously misguided to see PWDs finishing school and entering the mainstream society „empty handed‟, without any survival skill(s). Such a scenario will be like dumping these people in their communities. In order for PWDs not to find themselves seemingly „dumped‟ into the mainstream society, empty handed, desperate, and with nothing to do, they need an education that equips them with survival skills, early enough, whilst they are still in their traditional school life. This author feels that vocational education curriculum, with a slant to practical subjects, is the way to go for PWDs. Such an education should be given to learners with disabilities with the same emphasis as it is given to the non-disabled. Vocational education, as Museva (1989) in Mavhunga (2002:306) asserts, is “...an effort by schools to include in their curriculum those practical subjects which are likely to generate among the students, some basic knowledge, skill and dispositions that might prepare them to think of becoming skilled workers or to enter other manual operations...” Such an education, therefore, capacitates an individual with skills to construct new knowledge and solve practical life problems, in order to live independently. The philosophy of independent living is to maximise opportunities for personal choices and growth, through self-help or survival engagements. In order for PWDs to acquire and/or develop these self-help life skills, they need to be exposed to an education curriculum, which has a transitional component into adulthood, where one‟s quality of life (QoL) will be measured. Without these life skills, PWDs have been known to exist in hostile social environments that do not enhance their independence. Since one of the goals of education is to prepare learners for independent adult responsibilities, the education curriculum should, therefore, have some technical inclination, which boarders around the acquisition of daily living skills. To enhance survival engagements for independence, it may be reiterated that PWDs need an education curriculum with a strong vocational slant in order for them to be functional in the society they find themselves. Unless persons with disabilities are equipped and ultimately possess functional life or survival skills at an early stage of life, the majority of them would be found in streets begging.