Corporations, Education and People Living With Disabilities

By James TS Chua

It was with much expectation that I attended the public forum on the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 at the Malaysian Bar Council on 17th January 2009. People with various disabilities (PWDs) were to converge and discuss pertinent issues they face. I believed that this would be an extraordinarily positive step toward social inclusion of PWDs.

However, after the conclusion of the forum, I felt somewhat shortchanged. The Act in its entirety is not satisfactory and there is definitely more room for improvement in the Act. I thought perhaps corporations could help with these issues, but no corporations were present at the forum.

That is a shame, as the companies missed an opportunity to look into an area ripe for CSR involvement.

Education has long been a priority of nation-building in Malaysia.  Nonetheless, a parent shared that she had tried every means of enrolling her Down Syndrome daughter in all the available schools (both general and special) in vain, either because the teachers were not passionate about teaching or not serious in caring for disabled children.

The Act stipulates in section 28 that “Persons with disabilities shall not be excluded from the general education system on the basis of disabilities, and children with disabilities shall not be excluded from pre-school, primary, secondary and higher education, on equal basis with persons or children without disabilities, including vocational training and lifelong learning.” Would it not be remiss of these schools to ignore the mother’s desire to have her daughter educated like anyone else?

A Special Education lecturer from UKM even revealed that there is still a long way to go in the training of  teachers to properly care for such children. If a teacher, a highly regarded representative of the real world, cannot even master the basic signs for communication with deaf students, what would this tell about the state of our local educational institutions?

Perhaps businesses can work with non-governmental organisations and implement a long-term education model plan that includes school buildings with disabled-friendly facilities, and provision of special equipment at no cost or affordable rates.  Reduced or waived student fees could be offered, and a select pool of well-trained teachers  might be paid enough to convince them to dedicate their attention to disabled students.

Apart from the improvement of educational facilities, CSR businesses can also think of supporting PWDs in higher educational institutions.

Although there have been media mentions of disabled graduates (blind, deaf and wheelchair-bound) in universities, I wonder how much the general public understands about the financial struggle of a parent to put such a child through university studies.

University education does not come cheap nowadays, and the struggle is greater for disabled students who generally come from low-income and lower middle-income families. In addition, special equipment and translation services may come into the picture for a disabled student, which add to the financial burden. The monthly allowance of RM300 by the Welfare Department for higher education disabled students is just enough to pay for the meals and transport.

I have a less well-to-do friend who is able to study Graphic Design in a prestigious local university because of a generous scholarship from a well-known property company. He has consistently  good grades and is due to graduate this July.

If only more CSR-businesses could step forward and commit themselves to providing a steady stream of scholarships for deserving disabled students, especially in this economic downturn. By a similar token, businesses would also do well to hire these talented people after their graduation.

This would then be in line with the Act’s vision of seeing disabled people as having “the right to access to employment on equal basis with persons without disabilities.”

The public forum has been an eye-opener in terms of how much we are sorely lacking in educational progress for disabled students. From this point, I hope that CSR-businesses will take the opportunity to bring cheer to disabled students and their families via better provision of educational facilities and education sponsorship.◊

James TS Chua is a freelance writer and an advocate for those who are living with disabilities.

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