NIK FATIN FATEHA BINTI NIK MOHD ZAKI

BARRIERS AND DIFFICULTIES AMONG STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

On this 21^st century, disabled people's exclusion from education sector which comes both formal and informal has become a global phenomenon. According to The Global Partnership for Education, it is estimated that 90% of children with disabilities across the countries do not go to school and people with disabilities have lower educational attainment compared to people without disabilities. This issue has to do with people with disabilities experiencing significant barriers in accessing basic services predominantly in education. The inability to keep up which also leads to a lack of education has indirectly resulted in limited social interaction and low self-esteem has locked disabled people into a vicious cycle.

First of all, policy barriers regarding student disability and discrimination often occur among educational institutions. Policy barriers are closely related to lack of awareness or enforcement of existing laws and regulations that require programs and activities to be accessible to people with disabilities. In fact, there are other ways allowed by the policy specifically for students with disabilities however there are some school authorities that are unwilling to make any efforts to ensure that these issues are effectively addressed to a point where families of people with disabilities have to negotiate with authorities to include their children in school activity.

Apart from that, an incident of marking and selecting non-disabled students compared to disabled students. To a certain extent, some educators normally from mainstream schools which are also referred as regular schools tend to not pick students with disabilities for instance to represent any competition organized by external organizations. They believe that people with disabilities are not able to compete as well as others can and view that sending children with disabilities to any school contest is a waste of time. The effect according to (Kelly & Norwich 2004) students with a disability may experience social exclusion and develop feelings of inadequacy due to their inability to be at the same level as their peers.

Another aspect that leads to exclusion and barriers among the students with disabilities is the fact that societies stigma upon them. Some parents have requested the school to get rid of certain students with disabilities for personal reasons i.e. they think that disabled students are low class and do not want their children to socialize or be friends with them. As a result, children with disabilities tend to be less liked, bullied, mocked and ignored by their peers, causing them to not want to socialize which eventually leads to other diseases such as anxiety and depression.

In conclusion, inequality in the education sector cannot be taken lightly by all parties. It doesn't matter if students are disabled or not, they should all be given equal opportunities in education.

REFERENCES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, September 16). Disability and health disability barriers. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/disability-barriers.html 

BLOOM

Believe it or not, the world is full of hidden talents that never come to light. Some people are very talented,but their talents stayed behind closed doors because of their own insecurities and fear of being judged.This was the case for Fatin, a quiet girl with a crippled hand but loves to draw and paint.

Fatin comes from a family that is perfect as it is where everyone was educated, smart and most importantly everyone was physically perfect. Unlike her, Fatin does not have a right hand. Once, her family had an accident involving a collision between their car and a lorry carrying construction materials when she was still a baby. At the time of the incident, her right hand was pierced by a rusty iron which caused her hand to suffer an infection that she had to undergo hand surgery. Her day became dark and gloomy after that incident.

Fatin often kept to herself, spending more time drawing and painting everything around her than conversing with her peers during her school day. It is because of her crippled hand that hinders her from socializing. She was ashamed of it. Hence, she prefers to mind her own business, dreaming of one day becoming a secret artist. She was happy to draw in secret, finding some comfort in them but never finding the courage to sell them to anyone.

Everything changed when Julia, her classmate, discovered her artbook. Fatin had accidentally dropped her artbook in the art studio. She paled once she saw Julia holding her artbook, expecting her to laugh. To her surprise, Julia praised her for her talent. She was hooked by the art Fatin had painted and encouraged Fatin to put it in the school's art gallery.

Fatin was beyond touched. All this time she thought that everyone was making fun of her drawing alone at the corner of the class and thought her drawings were bad and were not good enough. When Julia brought up the topic of Fatin’s talent in drawing during class banquet, everybody was excited for her. One of her classmates also offered to put her drawings in her personal art shop. With her friends and families as her greatest supporters, Fatin finally found the courage to face the world.

Now Fatin is a proud painter of many bestsellers. With her friends and family unconditional support, Fatin had grown from a timid hooded painter into a confident successor whose works were intentionally acclaimed. She was truly a flower that blooms in the midnight.