2 New Diagnostic Centres Coming for Children with Special Needs

BY AINSWORTH MORRIS Career & Education writerSunday, April 21, 2013MINISTER of Education Ronald Thwaites says parents with special needs children can expect two new diagnostic centres for children in Montego Bay and Mandeville, which should cost the Government approximately $40 million.According to Thwaites, who was speaking at the 20th anniversary service for special needs institution Promise Learning Centre at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston on April 13, parents from these and surrounding areas have been burdened with the responsibility of taking their children to Kingston for assessment at the Mico Child Assessment and Research in Education (CARE) Centre for years.He said his ministry would like to change this."We've put $40 million in the budget and we hope that can really supplement it, and we hope that sometime later this year they will begin operations," Thwaites said.He said with the new centres, the demand on the services of the Mico CARE Centre will be lessened and the need to travel for assessment and treatment reduced.Thwaites told Career & Education that these two areas were chosen for the new centres because a majority of the population of children with special needs are geographically located in surrounding areas, and the two are connected with teacher training institutions."They are going to be located at Church Teachers' College in Mandeville and Sam Sharpe Teachers' College in Montego Bay," Thwaites said.He said Jamaica has a growing demand for special needs educators and he hopes to satisfy this demand by 2016 by using these new institutions as training ground for individuals who want to be trained to cater for special needs students. Click here to read more