Government Asked To Include Special Needs Learners’ Data Into Control System
According to a lobby, the government should keep track of statistics and information about students with special needs.
The populations of people with disabilities varies, according to a report by Pal Network on special needs education students.
“The population may vary from 400,000 to 2.3 million according to the Education Ministry, 2020,” the report reads.
This is due to a lack of standardized methods and tools for investigating the many types of impairments.
“There is a need for the government to emphasise systematic data collection, analysis and disability mainstreaming in all government reports,” the report reads.
This, according to the lobby, would allow for long-term evaluation of performance and policies.
The group stated that the institutions must be sufficiently funded in terms of government capitation.
This is because all pupils receive the same amount of funding for primary and secondary education.
The report does demonstrate, however, that the ministry of education has been working to close the financial gap for special education students (SNEs).
The lobby discovered that the current top-up fee for SNE students is Sh2,300 per year, plus extra Sh12, 000 for boarding subsidies.
The Free Secondary Education policy gives an additional Sh35, 730 (boarding and tuition) for secondary school pupils.
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According to the report, the policy rules do not specify out an alternate capitation rate for learners who have presented issues with disabilities.
In the fiscal year 2021/2022, 3,084 SNE schools with a total enrollment of 139,732 students got a tuition subsidy of Sh321 million.
For the academic year 2021/2022, 349 SNE schools with a total enrollment of 37,576 students earned Sh455 million according to the report.
Exam administration in SNEs confronts resource constraints, according to the study.
The experts, on the other hand, bemoaned the lack of help from the county government.
The report states that there were notable shortages of speech therapists and nutritionists, and most specialists have specified.
According to the findings, there were very few specialized personnel in charge of assessing deaf-blind students.
180 (primary) and 30 (secondary) schools benefited from the Sh759.9 million earmarked for infrastructure in the special needs education sector.
The teachers’ lobby bemoaned a nationwide scarcity of trainee teachers.
By 2020, the ministry will have 2,500 students enrolled in technical training schools.
Machakos TTI (blind), Karen TTI (deaf), Sikri TTI (deaf and blind), and NNyangóma TTI (deaf) are the institutes.
In 2021/2022, there were 3,084 special primary schools and 38 special secondary schools.
There were 5,511 students in high schools and 139,732 in primary schools.
Government Asked To Include Special Needs Learners’ Data Into Control System
