ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the level of provision, attempts to situate special education within the African region’s socio-cultural dynamics, the existing face-lifting education policies and the international advocacy for people with disabilities towards their right to education, to equality of opportunity and to participation in the life of the community. African countries, despite their stated educational policies, have in the main left special education to ‘follow the wind’ of their external pioneers. Nigeria is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with a comprehensive special education policy incorporated in the national education policy package. Ordinary school and class provision with specialist support in the English-using countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, for example, are very few and represent, except for children with motor disabilities, a new development. The number of special classes and units for mentally handicapped children in English-using countries in Eastern and Southern Africa grew by about 60 per cent from 103 in 1985 to 164 in 1987.
