TUNISIA: Participants in the first Arab League Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) conference for visual impairment, currently taking place in Tunisia, were briefed on the Jordanian experience in developing education for blind persons.
According to Jordan News Agency, Mohammad Rahamneh, Head of the Directorate of Programs for Students with Disabilities at the Ministry of Education, presented Jordan’s proactive approach in enhancing education for people with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairments, during the two-day conference. Jordan launched a ten-year strategy for inclusive education in 2020, focusing on developing educational legislation for inclusion, improving the educational process with specialized teachers, and raising teacher efficiency through specialized training courses.
As part of this strategy, the Ministry of Education in Jordan has implemented a building code that ensures all environmental facilities, such as health facilities, yards, laboratories, a
nd classrooms, accommodate the needs of individuals with disabilities. Additionally, the provision of educational tools, technology, and suitable programming devices, such as those available at Abdullah bin Umm Maktoum School, is emphasized. This school currently serves 270 out of the total 800 blind students in Jordan.
Al-Hashimi Al-Ardawi, an education advisor at ALECSO, highlighted that the conference, which follows a study day held in March, aims to review best practices for improving education for blind persons and to develop policies that enhance opportunities for this group. The conference covers six themes: educational legislation, psychological care, educational rehabilitation and inclusion, educational entitlements of blind persons, the use of technology, and the development of knowledge resources, intellectual and cultural production, printing, codification, matching, and Braille writing development.