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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2020-10-30 07:00
Last update date: 2020-10-30 07:00
The Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, visited a special school and a kindergarten-cum-kindergarten in Sham Shui Po on Wednesday (28th) to learn about the government and social welfare agencies providing services to students and young children with special needs, and hope to provide early support for special learning Children in need.
The Chief Executive announced earlier that he will postpone the announcement of a new policy address. He hopes to postpone the announcement until the end of November when he seeks for the preferential port measures from the central government. However, support measures for special schools have been discussed for many years. Is it necessary for the government to wait again?
Lam Cheng (bottom left) visited Po Leung Kuk Leung On Ki Kindergarten and Kindergarten in Sham Shui Po to learn about the school's services for children with special learning needs.
(Photo by the Information Services Department)
Lack of places is not a day's cold
As early as the 2019 policy address, Chief Executive Carrie Lam has stated that he will take care of students with different needs, and plans to allocate 5 billion additional resources for "increasing support for integrated education and special education" and "improving school hardware and software construction." .
However, there is a chronic shortage of places for special children. The audit report in November last year found that 63% of students waiting for "7-day boarding" places have been waiting for more than one year, and the longest waiting time is nearly 3 years and 9 months , And those waiting for "5 days boarding" service, the longest waiting time is up to 5 years and 10 months.
The audit report was published earlier than a year ago, and the problem of inadequate places has not been a day's cold.
Not only is the waiting time for students’ hostels too long, students also have a long way to go after graduating from a special school, putting pressure on their families to take care of them.
At present, special schools provide students with 12 years of free basic education and high school education. The general entrance age is 6 years old, and students must graduate after 12 years, that is, 18 years old after completing sixth form.
After graduation, people with mild or higher ability with moderate intellectual disability can wait for sheltered workshops, but people with severe intellectual disability can generally only wait for SWD services such as dormitories. According to the waiting information of the SWD’s Central Referral System for Rehabilitation Services, as of In June this year, the number of people waiting for the dormitory for the moderately and severely mentally disabled was 2,531 and 2,453 respectively, and the waiting time was 16 and 19 years respectively.
Students have to leave school once they graduate, and the window period between graduation and waiting for places will undoubtedly increase the pressure on the lives of family members who take care of the mentally handicapped.
In September this year, a tragedy occurred in Kwai Chung Village. A 46-year-old mother with 3 children strangled the 21-year-old mentally disabled eldest son to death in the middle of the night. The incident was also suspected to be related to the fact that he had just left the boarding house of a special school at the age of 21. .
The problem of inadequate places has existed for many years. The government should have started to solve it last year. The two-pronged approach is to improve the waiting mechanism for places and expand the supply of places to speed up the progress of arranging places for people in need to avoid the recurrence of unfortunate tragedies.
Special children have extra difficulty in taking care of them, and school places are important.
(Profile picture)
Perfect home care, home care
Facing the dilemma of special school graduates not being able to connect to rehabilitation services immediately, Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said that during the visit, she deliberately learned about the dormitory situation and studied the use of surplus places in the dormitory department of special schools to be a graduate of the original school during long holidays The feasibility of providing respite service.
As a short-term relief measure, if the government has the flexibility to have the resources to take care of the mentally handicapped for a short period of time, so that the family of the mentally handicapped can take a holiday and rest, it can indeed share part of the pressure of caregivers.
However, from the perspective of long-term policies, the government can still study services such as home care or home care.
It may take several years to build institutions to increase residential places. However, in the short term, the government should also be able to increase manpower and resources to engage in temporary care work in the community to share the pressure for caregivers of the mentally disabled.
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