Knut: Special needs have been ignored

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) claims children and teachers with special needs have been neglected by the education system. Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion said several years after reforms, these learners and teachers remained neglected in terms of school enrollment and remuneration.

"Out of the three million school-going children in Kenya, a huge fraction live with disability. We still have a lot of work to be done in this country," said Sossion at the close of a Special School Heads Association of Kenya annual delegates' conference in Nairobi yesterday.

He added that while several special needs teachers had been trained, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) was either paying them meagre salaries or not utilising them at all. He noted that Special Needs Education (SNE) teachers had not been given the recognition they deserved or paid allowances.

"How many SNE teachers have been recruited? We will not complain if today they advertised 5,000 positions," he noted while calling on education players to develop curriculum reforms to accommodate special needs.

And Maseno University School of Education and Special Needs senior consultant Edward Kochung' called on institutions with special needs students to integrate their curriculum with their communities.

"These children will not live in school forever. They are part and parcel of the communities they come from and where they will live for the rest of their lives," said Mr Kochung'.