In some classrooms in Senegal, deaf and hard-of-hearing students now study alongside everyone else

ANDREI POPOVICIU

Mouhamed Sall stepped to the chalkboard with a glance and quick question in sign language to an assistant. Then he solved the exercise to the silent approval of his classmates, who waved their hands in a display of appreciation.

Sall and three other students are part of a new approach in a small number of schools in Senegal that seat those who are deaf and hard of hearing with the rest of the class.

Some classmates at the sun-washed Apix Guinaw Rails Sud school in a suburb of the capital, Dakar, have embraced the chance to learn sign language in the months since Sall arrived. The class is lively and cheeky: “No teachers allowed in this room,” graffiti scrawled above the chalkboard says.

“I have no problem communicating with some colleagues I went to primary school with,” Sall said as his mother spoke. “The new colleagues don’t know