State to increase funds for special education needs

Children with special education needs are set to receive more funding once the government implements the National Special Needs Education policy framework.

Under the policy framework launched on Wednesday by Education minister Sam Ongeri, it is expected that the financing gap — which is the biggest obstacle in the provision of special education — will be bridged.

Annually, children with special needs are allocated Sh3,020 by the government which is Sh2,000 more than what other children get, but children with special education needs require at least Sh18,000 to give them an education that is at par with their mainstream classmates.

The desirable figure, which is nearly six times what the education ministry allocates, is the result of such children requiring specialised equipment, teachers and learning institution that have facilities which make learning easier.

Complicating the matter is the fact that a majority of these children come from poor families and their parents find it difficult to participate in cost sharing.

The drive towards improving special education to balance it with mainstream education aims at giving equal opportunities to people with disabilities who make up 10 per cent of the population.

“Special needs education is important as it prepares those who are dependants to become self-reliant,” said the Education minister.

Since 2003 the ministry has disbursed Sh2.69 billion but more funds need to be pumped into the sector if the objective of making children with special needs self-reliant is to be achieved.

The money disbursed so far has gone into construction of 143 special primary schools, 10 secondary schools and 5 training colleges for visually and hearing impaired students and teachers.

All institutions are to increase the enrolment rate of children with special needs at primary school level that stands at 4 per cent to the desirable 10 per cent.

The policy is expected to be implemented by May 2011.

Another policy in the offing is the scrapping of Chemistry in the KCSE for visually impaired students

Visually impaired students are disadvantaged in the subject as they cannot identify colour changes in experiments, consequently they cannot answer questions that require inferences from these experiments.

Government statistics indicate that there are 45,000 students in 114 schools and 1,341 special units which is a 67 per cent increase since 2003 when the Free Primary Education programme was launched, which also hems in children with special needs.