GOVERNMENT has bought a Braille printer from China to increase access to education for visually impaired learners, a senior Government official has said.
In an interview with The Sunday Mail Extra, Primary and Secondary Education Deputy Minister Professor Paul Mavhima said the Braille machine would improve access to education for all.
“We bought the Braille press which would be used towards the printing of textbooks and other useful resources for the visually handicapped,” he said. “This programme is to make sure as ministry we carter for disability children so as to promote quality education to visual handicapped students.”
Prof Mavhima bemoaned the lack of adequate resources to improve the situation of disabled children and asked the private sector to partner Government for development.
Prof Mavhima said the Braille press was already at the Education Technological Centre in Mt Pleasant, Harare.
Braille consists of arrangements of dots that constitute letters of the alphabet, numbers and punctuation marks.
Zimbabwe National League of the Blind executive director Mr Ishmael Zhou said: “We fully appreciate what Government has done for visually impaired people in buying the Braille machine, but a lot still needs to be done because the country also needs a source for material. Currently we only have the Kapota facility, which is small, and the Braille Library in Harare.
“We need more centres, spread across the country for them to access literature and help further their studies.”
Mr Zhou added: “We have a project to build a Braille production unit in Bulawayo which would be computerised so as to ease the plight of visually impaired people but I strongly believe that it would a drop in the ocean of the current demands.”
He challenged the Primary and Secondary Education Ministry to ensure teachers were well trained to cater for visually impaired students.