By Victoria John –
A shortage of staff and dedicated educational facilities is depriving many with special needs of an education.
Eight-year-old Boniswa Mthembu loves holidays and weekends, not because it’s a break from school but because it’s the only time he gets to play with other children.
He doesn’t go to school with the other children in his homestead, because he has a physical disability.
He plays the waiting game: waiting for the chance to go to school one day; waiting for the other children to come home every afternoon.
He is one of hundreds of children with physical and intellectual disabilities who live in the rural area near Manguzi in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
They languish at home because there are not enough special needs schools, Margaret Masinga, who runs the local Disabled Peoples’ Organisation, tells the Mail & Guardian on the way to meet the Mthembus.
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