By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson says the Minister of Education must expand student testing and provide greater resources as schools face a rising number of special needs students without the preparation to accommodate them.

“The Minister is obligated to test students when they enter,” Mrs Wilson said during a Rotary Club of West Nassau meeting on Thursday. “The testing cannot only be limited to a few maths questions or a few English questions. We must now expand to special needs, and we also need to look at the hearing, their eyesight – all of that contributes to children not learning as much and as fast as they can.”

Mrs Wilson warned that teachers are encountering more students with autism and other learning challenges while lacking the training and tools to address them.

“Creative focus must be placed on special education to meet the needs of our special needs students,” she said. “We will know that we are coming up more frequently now with students with autism and students who may have other special needs, and the ability level of our students, we are noting, is much lower than previous years.”

“Teachers are also very concerned about special needs students, and they are assuming, based on watching the students, that it could be autism or some other special needs,” she added. “Again, teachers are not equipped to teach the special needs students. That’s a specialisation.”

She called for early intervention in literacy and numeracy and urged that teachers be given more academic freedom to adapt lessons to students’ levels.