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{
    "id": 1029222,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1029222/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 235,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Halake",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13184,
        "legal_name": "Abshiro Soka Halake",
        "slug": "abshiro-soka-halake"
    },
    "content": "social, economic and other aspects of life. However, implementation has become a major barrier to access quality of services for our citizens. I support the Motion to operationalize Section 46 of the basic education as moved by Sen. (Dr.) Musuruve on behalf of children with disabilities. However, I would like to mention one thing because the way it reads, ‗including a special needs service and identify clinics in respective counties---‘ I want this House and country to think beyond special needs, especially for children and education. We need to think beyond a clinical perspective and even social welfare perspective to a human rights perspective. This is so that we are not going to just confine children with disability as a clinical lot that needs to be looked at clinically or a social welfare case, but a case of social, economic and human rights that they deserve. If there is one way of ensuring that they access education, is to have these centers because data is becoming a driver of evidence for support in service provision. This is a good place to start and I congratulate her once more. The fact that this education assessment and research centers are there, means that we can collect data on which, then policy and legislative interventions can be made, going forward. One of the issues we face is that we do not even know how many of our children have disabilities. How then can we include them in our systems? These centers become more important when they are operationalized, so that we start collecting data and identifying issues causing barriers for these children. One of them is the fact even the teachers may not have the necessary and requisite training to provide services to our children. That data will come in handy to ensure that our training is geared towards that. On the issue of funding, as we speak about the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), where I know people with disabilities were having a lot of representation, we are happy that those have been taken on board. One of the issues is that if the children do not get access to education, whereas we have known them to exit very early in the education cycle, knowing the correlation between education and the social economic status of every citizen in those country, it then means that we will have children who exit the school system early because of lack of the right infrastructure to support them. Then the cycle of poverty and dependence is entrenched. This is a good Motion that should be supported by this House and the Ministry. Section 46 of the Basic Education Act becomes more important. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, investment in our children with disability makes a lot of sense. It will reduce dependence in the future because we are seeing many people with disability in poverty. If at the basic level of education they are out of the system, how will they ever have a chance to get out of the cycle of poverty if the children do not start off with the number one factor that correlates to social economic status? We must invest in our children with disability, so that the investment helps the country and cuts the cycle of dependence and poverty. It will also ensure that children with disability have an equal chance as a right for them under not just the Bill of Rights, but also under Section 46 of the Basic Education Act. Basic education is a devolved function and counties need to step up and ensure that they have the right data and the centers are operationalized. We can ask any county today how many of their children have disability and what category of disability. Today,"
}