Teaching Strategies for the Visually Impaired in Visual Arts

Abstract

A 2018 study by the Eye Unit of the Ghana Health Service revealed that about 270,200 Ghanaians are blind, representing 0.74% of the Ghanaian population. Records indicate that the education and training of blind people in Ghana date back to the early 1940s. The study of Creative Arts involves experimentation and interaction with the natural environment as a problem-solving tool for national development. Creative Arts encompass Art forms like painting, sculpture, graphic designing, and ceramics. However, in the study of Arts in Ghana, certain challenges have become barriers for the visually impaired who pursue art. This is a conceptual study conducted at the University Practice School – South Campus – Ghana. It delves into the challenges that visually impaired learners are exposed to in the study of Arts and establishes if it is the end of the road for a mainstream student who becomes visually impaired along the path in pursuing the dream as an artist. The study identified that visually impaired learners can express themselves artistically once the teaching and learning process is facilitated with tailor-made teaching and learning strategies in art which directly focuses on potential art learners who are visually impaired. The study gathered that mainstream education in Ghana should be restructured to enable harnessing the potential of visually impaired learners.