Providing Support Services to 247 Students with Hearing Disabilities: MoEHE

Ministry of Education and Higher Education

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced the presence of about 247 students with hearing disabilities in integration and specialized schools in the Ministry, including mild to moderate sensorineural hearing impairment, cochlear implants and deaf people who are limited to the Audio Education Complex.

Director of Special Education and Gifted Students Department at the Ministry Hanadi Al Khater noted that the Ministry is constantly keen to support students with hearing disabilities by providing them with various services in government schools, integration schools and specialized schools.

She explained that for students with hearing disabilities in public schools, these multiple services are represented in meeting the students' needs by following up on treatment plans, arrangements and facilities, whether at the level of assessment, school environment or classroom activities, while at the level of the two primary governmental schools of integration for both males and females, providing intensive services for students with cochlear implants, and those that support them to stimulate and develop their auditory skills, which helps them to integrate with their peers without any challenges.

As for specialized schools, which are schools that provide services for students with moderate and severe hearing disabilities (deaf), they provide educational services supported by the use of sign language, and related to psychological and social support for students with hearing disabilities, as well as providing audio technical services by following up the quality of devices used by students for this purpose, in addition to providing periodic training of sign language skills for students, school staff and parents, and providing assistive technology tools that support communication skills and the educational process.

Regarding the enrollment of students of the Audio Education Complex in universities, Al Khater said that the Ministry of Education and Higher Education has recently worked to raise the rates of standards offered to students of the Audio Education Complex, with the aim of developing their knowledge and audio capabilities, and thus increasing their enrollment in different universities according to their abilities and needs.

Al Khater referred to a meeting held by the Special Education and Gifted Students Department with the Inclusion and Special Needs Support Center at Qatar University, with the aim of coordinating with the university to receive the students of the Audio Education Complex who wish to enroll in it starting from the next academic year, and indicated that coordination is continuing between the two sides with the aim of facilitating the enrollment of the students of the Audio Education Complex at the university according to their abilities and needs.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education is carrying out a number of activities these days at the Audio Education Complex for boys and girls on the occasion of its participation in the celebration of Arab Deaf Week under the slogan "Inclusion of sign language in education curricula at all levels." The events include lectures and workshops in sign language, programs on instilling values, seminars and dialogues, field visits to a number of centers concerned with the deaf and specialized schools in this regard, and cultural and other competitions on visual arts.

The activities target students of the Audio Education Complex, center staff, boys and girls, integration schools, the Department of Psychological Sciences at the College of Education at Qatar University, parents of students, concerned teachers, and others.

Arab Deaf Week occurs annually at the end of April, during which associations and institutions concerned with caring for the deaf in the Arab world organize media and human rights activities to introduce and prevent deafness, and to raise awareness of the rights, capabilities and various types of deaf people.

(QNA)