IMPEDIMENTS TO ORIENTATION AND MOBILITY TRAINING PROGRAMMES IN GHANAIAN BASIC SCHOOLS: A CASE OF WA SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND

The purpose of the study was to explore the impediments to orientation and mobility (O&M) training programmes in the Ghanaian basic school using samples from Wa School for the Blind and suggest measures to curb such impediments. For the nature of the study, the descriptive qualitative design was used where six (6) participants were purposively sampled from a population of 20 final year pupils. Semi-structured interview and observations were used to collect data for thestudy and the gathered data was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings show that lack of teachers, unfriendly environment, inadequate white canes, stigmatisation, and lack of time for practice impede O&M training programmes. Again, the findings show that the measures that can be adopted to improve O&M training include training of teachers (specialists) to teach O&M techniques, provision of white canes, provision of O&M training time, and encouraging pupils who are visually impaired to use the white cane. The study concludes and draws implications based on the social model of disability that society ought to make the environmental modification which requires attitudinal and social change. Recommendations were made based on the findings and conclusions were drawn.