KUCHING: Sarawak will focus on producing specialised teachers for preschool children with autism.
Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg pointed out that autistic children can grow up to be normal as long as their autism is tackled at an early age.
Taking Singapore as an example, he said the republic has organisations where they have specialised teachers to help autistic children.
“These organisations have special programmes where specialised teachers are trained to help autistic children, therefore, I see that Sarawak needs to have our own specialised teachers for our autistic children.
“We know that autistic children are different from normal children, that is why we need to train our teachers well on the matter.”
He said this when officiating at the Sarawak-level Autism Awareness seminar at Sekolah Seni Sarawak here today (Oct 28).
Abang Johari disclosed that Sarawak has given special allocation to the Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus to train the teachers in that area.
“So we will have our own teachers that are specialised in handling autistic children. If these teachers want to further their studies and take a master’s degree in that field, we will send them to Melbourne to be trained in Swinburne’s main campus.
“Once we have these trained teachers, only then our approach in addressing autism will be more effective,” he said.
In light of this, Abang Johari added that the state government will also cooperate with the federal Women, Family and Community Development Ministry for a more effective approach to helping autistic children.
“That is why parents of autistic children should not worry. If you see that your children have autistic traits, just sign them in the programmes specialised for them. InsyaAllah, they will be as successful as any other children,” he said.
