•Ifeanyi, a partially sighted student at Pacelli School working out a maths problem on his abacus Pix: Sun News Publishing

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Tucked in a residential street between residential buildings on Ajao road, off Ogunlana drive, Surulere, Lagos, is a unique primary school. As one approaches the compound, one notes the signboard telling you there are two schools here, one on the left, Wesley School for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired, the other on the right, Pacelli School for the Visually Impaired and Partially Sighted Children.

And as you enter the neat compound hoping to find children groping about with walking aid, rather you find children walking about unaided, even as one cannot but notice a conspicuous write-up on the notice board, that reads, " God help us where we cannot help ourselves."

The time was about 9a.m, and it was time for Mathematics in primary five, a class of 12 pupils, mostly adolescents. Seated in a circular fashion, each child brings out his or her instructional materials, a Maths frame(a board with holes) with small iron pellets used as figures and the Abacus, a frame with beads arranged in columns.

In this class, biro and paper is non-existent, neither is the blackboard.
Here, the power of description and the mental alertness of the student is the key as the teacher, Mr. Gabriel Otoide, explained.

"I have to do more of explanation because they make use of Abacus and Maths frame. The one that explains the topic better is used for the particular topic."
On this particular day, the topic was on calculating distance, time and speed. And it involved fractions. Getting the answers to the questions is solved mentally or arranged out on either the Maths frame or the Abacus, and for the uninitiated, like this reporter, looking at the arrangements of those pellets on the frames or the beads on the Abacus will definitely not make sense. But for visually impaired students, it makes a lot of sense, because they represent their pen and paper.

While one readily takes for granted the sense of sight, seeing these children without sight, yet enthusiastic, gives one an attitude of gratitude. Many were born blind, some lost their sight along the way and oftentimes also lose some years of education or end up with no education at all, all thanks to a system that has little or nothing for children with special needs.

In the case of 20-year-old Afeez Onabanjo, who is in primary five, losing his sight to typhoid at the age of ten meant losing about seven years of his education. He was home at Ibadan, where he lives with his family all through and doing nothing, till his father heard about Pacelli school in 2002. Afeez resumed his education in 2003 and is coping well at present as it was obvious in his participation in class. But for many others like him, that may never be as schools for these category of people are quite few, where they exist, quality of education they receive often leaves much to be desired as instructional materials are quite expensive to procure, says Rev. Sister Grace Ushie of the Pacelli School.

"Pacelli is about the only standard school for the blind around here, though I learnt there are units created in the public schools but we find parents bringing back these children to us. Here, we educate them on charity as they don't pay fees and are all boarders. The instructional materials are quite expensive and we wonder what the government is doing to help these sector of the population. These children are also part of the society with rights to education, health, good nutrition and other things."

According to Sister Grace, none of the instruction materials used by the visually impaired is made in the country which justifies the exorbitant price at which they are procured. Though the Federal Ministry of Education claims to have plans for such in the pipeline, that is production of braille text book, and large prints text books, that is yet to be seen and felt. And in the words of Afeez, for government to exist for them, then it must be seen attending to their needs and making life less challenging for them.