No one wants to begin the New Year feeling down. Or furious.
Yesterday night, a father of his autistic son was definitely feeling both as he expressed his disappointment with Eden School’s enrolment system by venting his frustrations on social media.
Eden School is one of the few specialised institutions in Singapore, founded by the Autism Association Centre since 2008, that’s dedicated to helping children who’ve been diagnosed with autism and preparing them for life amongst the rest of society.
According to his Facebook post, Aqil Alid and his wife had pleaded for a placing with the school this year, only to be refused as the next earliest possible intake for their son, Nabil, would be in the following January.
In what could only be described as a trauma conga line, Aqil claimed that he’d approached various help services and even reached out to a member of the Parliament to help expedite the enrolment process, but he has yet to receive a response to this day. Worse still, as Nabil does not have a student concession card for travels (since he’s not officially a student), he’s been paying adult travel fares since the age of seven.
Thus, for Nabil who has been waiting to enrol in a school for the last two years, the father felt that it was an unjustifiable response to their predicament.
Many other parents empathised with Aqil’s frustrations, and they too felt the need for more state-funded assistance in special schools.
