School rejects wheelchair-bound student

A junior high school in Nara prefecture has rejected the enrollment of a female student because she suffers from cerebral palsy and requires a wheelchair:

The municipal board of education has said Shimoichi Junior High School cannot enroll the 12-year-old because the facility lacks elevators and other features needed for wheelchair access. It recommended the girl attend a special school for children with disabilities instead.

The parents are considering legal action against the board of education.

Other schools in Japan have faced a similar problem with wheelchair access. I recall seeing a TV news segment about a wheelchair-bound student whose school got around its lack of elevators by abandoning the standard practice of having students of higher grade level occupy higher floors of school buildings. The layout of the junior high school mentioned in this news story may prevent such a simple solution, but it’s hard to believe there isn’t something they can do to allow the girl to receive an education in that building.

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Joe

Reminds me of Hitotsu Yane no Shita. good stuff.

yeah they should be able to do something, imo someone who is able minded and can write/type shouldn’t need to go to a special school.

hl

Yeah, a wheelchair shouldn’t be a reason to separate someone.

The school could probably use a retrofit anyway. Maybe there are other kids who would also attend. What would they do if a child or a faculty member was temporarily wheelchair bound after an injury? Keep them out of school for a few months?

I was a ‘mainstream’ student at a mainstream school but we had some students that had cerebral palsy, were wheelchair bound, and even mentally impaired students.

The mentally impaired students attended a special set of classes within the school and only occasionally did projects which allowed them to interact with the rest of the students.

But even if you had CP or were in a wheelchair you were just a regular student. (Although when I had a class with someone in a wheelchair they got to sit in the front row.)

Intricate

But what if they can’t guarantee the safety of the student? If something happened at that school with the child those parents would probably sue the school on some other grounds.

Stormgust

Exactly.

For a building not created for movement impaired people the costs to have those restrictions removed are high, because usually you’d have to rebuild a lot of gates/staircases etc.

Also the additional security needed will cost the school a lot.

Usually it would be easier to send the child to a school for impaired children.

Rearranging the usual room distribution for different grades may not solve the problem, if the building itself has to many restrictions.

chouji

I don’t know…I currently teach in Japan and we had a wheelchair-bound girl in my last school. To make up for the lack of an elevator, the school had a wheelchair lift like this:

http://www.garaventa.ca/img/pwl/st-school.jpg

I was astonished that the school wasn’t equipped with anything for handicapped access, but then after a year in Japan, it didn’t surprise me. Many train stations don’t have elevators despite having more than a single platform, and for that matter many apartment large-scale apartment buildings with ten or more floors may only have stairs. I think disabilities in Asian countries were one of those things swept under the rug until only recently, now that it’s more visible due to changing ideas in society.
http://somewhereovertheramenbowl.blogspot.com ty_ping

A student at the school I taught at was wheelchair bound and our school never had any elevators. The Gym teacher just carried her upstairs everyday.
(Well I think so, I saw him do it once and I assumed that’s how she got up and down the stairs.)
helical

If the problems with a paralyzed student who needs help of assistants to get things done attending a facility is more than a reasonable amount of trouble, I think the administration is at least entitled to say that maybe that’s not such a good idea.

In a perfect world, if the student is able-minded then yes she should be allowed to attend any regular school.
I do agree with the post above that Japan is one of those countries which didn’t really think about accessibility for the disabled until recently. (The lack of real estate spawned a countless narrow, steep staircases)
But forcing a facility to admit someone for whom it wasn’t designed for isn’t going to solve much, other than to prove a point.
gaijin

That news report seems to be cut short. In another paper it said that she applied for the entrance examination but also wanted to write it in a different room and with extra time, conditions that the school would not comply with. If the school is not properly fitted with toilets, etc., there is no chance to comply. What happens if there’s a fire or earthquake ?
http://www.rockinginhakata.com Deas

I teach at a school with a student who is physically handicapped, but not confined to a wheel chair. (He can stand and walk very short distances.) They simply did what the above suggests, and put his grade level on the bottom floor of the building. I can only see it being a problem if there are 2 students who need ground level access in 2 different grades simultaneously.

However, if the comment above (by Gaijin) is true, I’m not sure what to do with it. Hmm.

School rejects wheelchair-bound student

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