WHEN Mia Le Roux was announced as the first deaf Miss South Africa, I was overjoyed as the goal of an inclusive society of the marginalised seemed attainable.
Le Roux’s deafness awakened my sense of ignorance to the challenges differently-abled people faced on life’s daily routines as a person who is not disabled.
September is Deaf Awareness Month. Therefore, I was honoured with an invite from iSchoolAfrica to witness how deaf learners at MCK Special School for the Deaf in Lenasia, Joburg, use iPads donated by the initiative to foster an inclusive education for learners in special needs schools.
iSchoolAfrica is an initiative that bolsters education technology by creating a tech-incentive environment in classes to bridge the digital divide and enhance learning capabilities for differently-abled learners.
The moment my industry colleagues and I arrived, the school’s deputy principal Ishwarlal Reggie, excitedly welcomed us.
According to Reggie, the four-decade old school offers deaf education and a technical operational curriculum for children with learning challenges. The school’s 462 learners are taught skills in welding, hospitality and agricultural studies, among other subjects.
The school has been working with iSchoolAfrica for the past 10 years. “We started the school with deaf and hard-of-hearing learners. We have recently introduced our deaf learners to the skills education,” Reggie said.
Some of the learners are provided with cochlear implants.
During a walkabout, our first stop was to a marimba class – the learners entertained us with marimba music.
To say I was shocked is an understatement, but I was eager to understand how these learners “hear” sound and be able to compose music.
iSchoolAfrica’s coding and robotics facilitator, Cameron Busch, said the learners sense sound through vibration.
“They feel the vibration through the speaker from the soul of their feet, that’s how they create music,” Busch said.
The marimba band is a mixture of eight kids who are deaf, hearing and hard-of-hearing.
Our second stop landed us at a coding and robotics class, where a group of learners demonstrated an experiment using the iPads.
Busch said the iPads have features that specifically support learners’ disabilities.
For non-deaf teachers, he noted an iSchoolAfrica facilitator interprets lessons between learners and teachers, making classes conducive.
Due to slow growth of inclusive tech-education, especially with a hearing disability, Busch said learners at MCK did not know coding.
“They have never heard of coding, it was a whole new experience for them,” he said.
He mentioned that through the iPads, deaf children are granted the opportunity to advance their ICT and STEM skills amid a technology influenced world, which narrows the digital divide.
In addition, the Department of Basic Education is set to make coding a compulsory subject in South African schools.
Although the group of learners were shy when asked questions, one managed to tell us that she enjoys coding through a sign language interpreter.
Intrigued by the experience, I was curious whether sign language can be signed in vernacular.
Although sign language cannot be signed in vernacular, Reggie said there’s a standardised framework for the South African Sign Language (Sasl).
Each country has its own structured framework of sign language, such as the British sign language. The signs are similar, yet distinct.
“In sign language, we use the reverse English structure. Instead of subject-verb-object to form a grammatically correct sentence, we use it in reverse, object-verb-subject,” Reggie said.
Deaf people use a person’s distinct features and the first letter of their name to name a person in sign language. Additionally, iSchoolAfrica created new signs for coding terms which were approved by the Sasl.
Boasting 15 years of excellence in providing tech-education in under-resourced and special needs schools, iSchoolAfrica director Michelle Lissoos described the iPads as “empowering and revolutionary” for deaf children.
iSchoolAfrica champions an education for differently-abled children, where no one is left behind.
“For deaf learners, access to technology like the iPad is breaking down barriers and opening doors to new opportunities and reshaping how education is delivered and experienced.
“For the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, technology provides real life communication tools, visual learning and interactive methods that traditional methods often lacked. The technology we use has amazing built-in accessibility features, which enhance learning, communication and skills upliftment for learners,” Lissoos said.
“We ensure learners with disabilities are not left behind, but they are given the tools to excel in education, instead of being absorbed as low class employees.”
There are 1% of disabled people who are unemployed, 4 million deaf people are jobless, which is a double marginalisation after the high rate of unemployment.
On our way to a Grade 4 English class, a group of learners came bearing hugs, so cute.
Miss Kirti, dubbed the “iPad champion” is a hard-of-hearing teacher. She demonstrated her creative writing lesson, which addressed the literacy challenges Grade 4 are faced with.
The learners created a visual book, catering for the needs of deaf children. Here, a learner takes a video of themselves telling a story through signing, which is then converted into various drawings to compile a visual book, similar to an audio book.
We moved to a Grade R class where I was mesmerised by these young minds who easily manoeuvred the iPads.
This is one of iSchoolAfrica’s programmes that teach children basic literacy and numeracy content at Early Childhood Development (ECD) level in time for school readiness. The ECD programme aims to prevent learning challenges when children transition to intermediate phase level.
Zulaikha Goolam, a speech therapist and facilitator, said deaf learners in ECD level hardly struggle to navigate the iPads. The learners have shown their eagerness to learn and quickly grab information, which develops their technology and cognitive skills.
“The kids learn through imitation because they cannot hear as they are deaf, including their teacher, she’s deaf,” Goolam said.
She said children learn sign language as early as possible as soon as it is discovered they are deaf.
