Amid growing concerns surrounding the impact of the ongoing teacher resignations in public education institutions, acting chief education officer in the Ministry of Education and Youth Kasan Troupe is reporting that not many special education teachers have tendered resignations.

Troupe, who was speaking on a local radio programme on Tuesday, September 5, said: ” We have not had for our special education schools, we have not had a major challenge even when we look at their resignation data, we are not seeing not many of them for this period resigning. We are yet to analyse what is coming in suddenly to us to see the categories but from the preliminary data, I remember just seeing two teachers of special education resigning.”

She further noted that there is a need within the education system for special education teachers because of the skills that they possess.

“Overall, the sector needs them because of the skills set that they come with is what we need to deal with the deficiencies within the system. So, in addition to them serving in our special education schools, they also serve in our high schools, you know, to address the PATHWAY programme [Sixth Form Pathway Programme] the challenges of that to make sure that our students are being assisted on their journey,” she said.

Troupe noted that the education ministry has been executing several strategies to attract more special education teachers to the sector, including offering scholarships and free course upgrades to persons already in the sector.

“We have been working with some of our colleges to do upgraded courses for persons who are so interested and we fund those, and we assist those for the conferences. We pay for our attendees to be there so they can get the skill set so we can exercise what needs to be done in our schools,” she added.

Special education teachers work with students who have a wide range of learning, mental, emotional and physical disabilities.