Education Ministry offers vocational education for special needs students

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Education has set up a vocational special education school offering Malaysian Skills Certificate (SKM) to special needs students to ensure they enjoy access to higher education.
Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching said the ministry was committed to providing access in education to such students so that they could be independent and live a better life.
"At present the vocational special education schools are located in Inderaputra, Johor; Shah Alam, Selangor; Kuantan, Pahang and Merbok, Kedah.
"All teachers at these vocational special education schools have been or are being given training at SKM Level 3 to enable them to teach as accredited teachers in the field of skills," she told the Dewan Rakyat sitting today.
She was replying to a supplementary question from Sivakumar Varatharaju Naidu (PH-Batu Gajah) on the extent to which the government paid attention and encouragement to the special needs group in the technical and vocational field as well as effective infrastructural systems to enable them to undergo vocational training.
Teo said the ministry also provided skills education in special education secondary schools and day schools that offered Integrated Special Education Programme to this group.
"At the moment, we have two special education secondary schools that provide skills programmes, at Setapak, Kuala Lumpur and Penang. We are also committed to setting up another special education secondary school in Penang, so we hope through this additional school, we can offer 250 more places for special needs students," she said.
The Education Ministry was also conducting a study to improve the disabled friendly infrastructure to all special education schools that would be implemented in stages, she added. — Bernama