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{
    "id": 1166292,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1166292/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 90,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Musuruve",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13188,
        "legal_name": "Getrude Musuruve Inimah",
        "slug": "getrude-musuruve-inimah"
    },
    "content": "Madam Deputy Speaker, another guiding principle in this Bill is recognizing the family and parents as important stakeholders and caregivers. When it comes to children with disabilities, it is unfortunate that sometimes people take them from a different paradigm. They do not realize that they also have special needs and personal goals. They just take them as people with special needs. Whether one has a disability or not, every human being has a personal goal. Personal goals can only be achieved if parents and caregivers are also recognized and factored in. Parents can inform what the children need. Together with teachers, they can help children with disabilities reach their optimal potential. Even children with disabilities have potentials. This Bill will ensure that optimal potentials of children with disabilities are reached. Another issue that this Bill seeks to address, which is equally important, is the issue of equity and equality. You will hear people saying that there is no money for infrastructure in schools and all that. We talk about schools generally but rarely do we find a talk about children with special needs education requiring a significant fraction of money that will help in infrastructural development of their schools. Madam Deputy Speaker, allow me to say on the Floor of this House about a pathetic situation that I witnessed. Can you imagine having one classroom for children with different forms of disability and about four teachers teaching at the same time using one blackboard? They divide the blackboard so that leaners can learn. It is a painful situation and that is the reality on the ground. In some schools, there is no infrastructure for children with disabilities. Some are all lamped in something like in a cowshed. This Bill will see to it that county governments take issues of special needs education with the seriousness it deserves. Children with disabilities have the potential, but have we tapped their potential in education? It is only the opportunity that they lack but when we tap the potential and give them the opportunity, they can perform, just like anybody else. This Bill seeks to ensure that we tap the potential that children with disabilities have. There are those who can do well in academia. Others can do well in crafts, Paralympics, music or games and their potentials should be tapped. This Bill seeks to ensure that every child with disability is seen as an individual who can be helped to become potential. According to this Bill, both levels of governments will be involved. The national and county governments will have to work in collaboration to ensure implementation of this Bill. When it comes to policy issues, the national Government will come in handy. The national Government is obligated to come up with policies with regard to education and many other issues in this country. According to this Bill, the national Government will come up with policies on education for learners with disabilities to ensure there is infrastructure, teachers are posted, equity, and that Government resources reach institutions for learners with disabilities. Many times we talk about not having enough human resource in special schools. Sometimes when we talk, it is like the information falls on deaf ears. This Bill obligates the national Government to have an inventory of the human resource in special schools. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}