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MOE's handling of special needs children attacked

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has neglected the needs of special needs children to disastrous effect in classrooms and homes, governing and opposition party lawmakers alleged yesterday.

Sitting beside parents of "severely developmentally challenged" children from Nantou County, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Yun-sheng (林耘生) panned the official overseeing the schooling of such children in a press conference at the legislature.

Parents, he said, must transport their kids to and from a school in Taichung City each day because no schools are open to them in their own county.

"These parents can't find the time to make the drive. The Ministry of Education hasn't arranged for any transportation," Lin said. "This isn't right!"

The Nantou parents aren't the only ones facing such a predicament, he said.

Since the ministry implemented its "education placement" plan for children with special needs this year, parents nationwide are finding that nearby schools that used to offer placement to their children are now turning them away.

The few remaining "special schools" are, in many cases, hours away, Lin said.

Faced with difficult, or even impossible, commutes and little assistance from educational authorities, "Some parents are forced to cut their children's schooling short," Lin said. "These kids are denied their constitutionally protected right to an education."

Ministry representative Tsai Chi-ming (蔡志明) said that placing certain children in schools far from home is necessary as only these facilities have the resources to address the students' needs.

Junior high school graduates with less severe disabilities, Tsai said, are being placed in local high school classes that help them develop job skills.

But the ministry would arrange for transportation and on-campus accommodation for those whose disabilities warrant placement in schools far from home such as those in Taichung and Changhua, he said, without giving a timetable for such arrangements.

Tsai left the press conference as soon as it ended and did not talk with either reporters or the parents present.

At a separate press conference, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) also slammed the ministry for "not addressing a huge number of children suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD]."

Children afflicted by the disorder appear normal, but lack the ability to focus and control their emotions, Lee said.

ADHD Education Foundation secretary-general Tsai Mei-hsing (蔡美馨) said 260,000 children in this country have the disorder.

Every class, the foundation said, has at least one or two students who have ADHD.

Despite such staggering figures, the ministry has done little to prepare teachers for managing such students, and most ADHD students go undiagnosed, Lee said.

These students are usually ridiculed by their teachers for being undisciplined, she said, calling on the ministry to recognize the scope of the problem and provide professional services to ADHD students.

Fighting back tears at the conference, high school student Chin Yu-han (秦郁涵) recalled being ridiculed by teachers and classmates because of her ADHD. Her teachers called her "messy" and beat her, while classmates shunned her.

She was undiagnosed for years before a bout of depression forced her parents to look into her situation more closely.

"I would go to school and get beaten, and then I would go home and get beaten," Chin said. "Everybody beat me."
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