For thousands of neurodivergent children in Ghana, the classroom remains a place of exclusion.
We talk about inclusive education in policy documents. We sign international commitments. But on the ground, the reality is very different.
Consider this. One in every five children with a disability aged 6 to 24 has never attended school in Ghana, according to UNICEF. Among those who do enrol, many face stigma, corporal punishment, and teachers who simply have not been trained to support them.
Approximately 8 per cent of Ghanaians live with a disability, including conditions like autism, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexia. Yet data on neurodivergent learners is so limited that we do not even know how many are in school or how many are being left behind.
Ghana has an Inclusive Education Policy from 2015. It is a good framework on paper. But implementation is uneven. Some studies report that up to 75 per cent of teachers believe current inclusion efforts are not successful. The reasons are familiar: lack of resources, insufficient training, and classrooms designed for one type of learner only.
My own experience: I have personally faced challenges with schools where the teachers had no clue what ADHD is. There was outright unwillingness to develop an Intervention Plan for my child, and when I did extensive research and tried to explain what she needed, I was met with impatience instead of understanding.
I have had teachers label my child as disruptive. They said she was not availing herself. I watched them show disdain and frustration, never once asking why she might be struggling or what they could do differently. One teacher tied her with her belt to a chair for moving around too much. Others suggested I was not regulating her sugar or screen time. I also found that all the schools I visited claim they support neurodivergent learning in their prospectuses, etc., and yet do not implement it.
It breaks my heart every day to watch her struggle, and at a system that expects teachers to do a job they have never been trained for, and for me, this journey has been lonely. I have found that very few people really care. Even those in the same situation, due to the lack of support, just switch off.
Through sharing my struggle with a friend, I found an amazing organisation called The Kaleidoscope Collaborative ( Instagram ) run by Patrinia Baksmaty | LinkedIn. Patrinia is a Disability Inclusion Strategist who empowers schools and communities to reimagine inclusion and accessibility for neurodiverse learners and individuals with disabilities, and I would like to share this resource with anyone who needs it.
Through their subsidiary, The HomeSchoolLAB, a neurodiversity-affirming learning, intervention, and teacher-training institute based in East Legon, Accra, they are slowly trying to change how educators teach so that all children to be able to learn. Everything they do is grounded in Universal Design for Learning, neurodiversity, and research-based instructional practice.
Their mission is simple: equip children, families, and educators with the tools, mindsets, and learning environments they need to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.
For me, they are my hope, and I am lucky I can afford this resource. My child now attends literacy classes twice a week with them. For the first time, she is not being labelled. She is being taught with consideration for her challenges.
But I also need to say something difficult. I have experienced a lot of fake organisations out there that have positioned themselves to help with this gap, but that are not truly committed. They take advantage of desperate parents who just want help for their children, collect fees and deliver nothing meaningful. It is painful to be exploited like this when we are already exhausted and vulnerable.
I would love to be part of a movement that works to see the following goals reached across Ghana, and this is what I hope for:
One, build school capacity to assess learners and develop individualised, affordable interventions.
Two, train teachers in inclusive pedagogy and differentiated instruction.
Three, empower parents and caregivers to support learning at home.
Fourth, influence policy to integrate inclusive education into all teacher training programs and schools nationally.
This is not just a government problem; this is a problem schools must be open to addressing, especially the multitude of private schools in Ghana. If you are an educator, a parent, a policymaker, or someone who simply believes that every child’s education matters, I would love to hear from you. What is working in your community or for your family? Where are the biggest gaps? And how do we hold the so-called dyslexia, autism and ADHD experts accountable so that only the committed ones remain?
By Anne Sackey