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{
    "id": 1166314,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1166314/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 112,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. (Prof) Kamar",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 33,
        "legal_name": "Margaret Jepkoech Kamar",
        "slug": "margaret-kamar"
    },
    "content": "I thank Sen. (Dr.) Musuruve for this Special Needs Education Bill (Senate Bills No. 44 of 2021). Madam Temporary Speaker I second this Bill knowing very well that education is a right to every child in this country. This Bill is an Act of Parliament that is supposed to provide for education of learners with special education needs for the conduct of the education institutions as regards to special needs learners and for connected purposes. This is a very important Bill because according to the Constitution of Kenya, every child has a right to education. I am a member of the National Fund for the Disabled of Kenya. Last week, I visited a school in Kakamega called St. Monica School. It is a special school for the deaf. It is the only one in that region and in the North Rift region. We actually call it the institution for Western Kenya. In Uasin Gishu County, we only have a school for the deaf that only takes care of primary school and after that, we off load our children to St. Monica School in Kakamega. That tells us that education needs of our special children are completely un-met. A whole county can have a primary school without a secondary school for children with special needs and we cannot have one secondary school in the whole region. That school is fed by all the counties in North Rift Region and Western Kenya. The provisions of this Bill to enable proper education for these children is very important aspect. The rights of learners with special needs are like the likes of any other learners. The sad thing in our country is that special needs learners were ignored for a very long time. We need to know that if we do not educate these children, they become a burden not only to their families but the nation. One of the aspects of this Bill is about the access to quality education. Last year, I visited special schools in the Meru, Embu and Isiolo under the program that I am engaged in. Inaccessibility to education for a special child is not just accessing the school and having one teacher like what most schools have done. In most of the school that we visited, they had only one teacher in special education integration. In classrooms where there is integration the children are not getting enough attention. Children that are disabled in one way or the other need extra attention beyond the reading of the books that they have. We went to one school that was dealing with physical disability. What shocked us was that there were no ramps for the children to access the classroom they are supposed to be in. If there are no ramps for them to access classroom, they have already been discriminated and locked out. When we talk of the rights of the special learners needs, we must consider the fact that we are not only looking at the education content that we are looking for. We are looking at the accessibility to the learning institution itself and mobility within the school. We were in a school where the other children have to lift the wheelchairs for the students who are lucky to have wheelchairs. We also had a meeting with the parents of 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."
}