Pretoria - The Ministry for Women, Children and People with Disabilities intends tackling some of the challenges facing people with disabilities by addressing issues such as education, transport and employment opportunities.
Speaking during her Budget Vote in Parliament on Tuesday, Minister Lulu Xingwana said people with disabilities faced more hurdles with regards to socio-participation, when compared to other sections of the population.
This included the lack of access to economic opportunities, transport, education and health services.
The department intends addressing the challenges by firstly, improving access to education through the promotion of the inclusive education policy.
"We have to promote integration of children with special needs into the mainstream school, while acknowledging that children with severe disabilities will still need special schools," Xingwana said.
The department will conduct an audit of all special schools in the country, after reports of abuse surfaced at two schools last year.
"This audit should provide information on the state of each of these schools and inform appropriate interventions that have to be made to enhance the learning environment for children using these facilities," she added.
The department will tackle the issue of transport, which was a major barrier because it limited the participation of people with disabilities in the social, educational and economic activities.
Xingwana said her department would work together with the Department of Transport to ensure the public transport strategy and initiatives respond to the transport needs of people with disabilities.
The National Accessibility Campaign, which the department will develop and implement, will be aimed at promoting "equalisation of opportunities" for people with disabilities, she added.
It will focus on issues such as reasonable accommodation at the work place, accessibility of buildings where government services are provided, promotion of Braille, sign language and other accessible communication formats and access to assistive devices and disability grants.
The department will also keep a close eye on employment equity targets for people with disabilities.
"We are very concerned with the continued failure of both the public and private sector to advance towards the target of 2 percent employment equity for people with disabilities, with our country standing at 0.9 percent in 2010," she said.
The last report of the Employment Equity Commission indicated that government was trailing behind the private sector with regard to employment of persons with disabilities, the minister noted.
While people with disabilities constituted 0.6 percent of state employees, the figure stood at 1 percent for the private sector.
Xingwana said the department would ensure that other government departments committed to clear milestones towards attaining 2 percent employment equity for people with disabilities and were held accountable for the targets.
The private sector also had to be encouraged to increase the number of people with disabilities it employs, she added.
