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{
    "id": 215640,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/215640/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 343,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Prof. Olweny",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 122,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Ayiecho Olweny",
        "slug": "patrick-olweny"
    },
    "content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move the following Motion:- THAT, in view of the fact that there are several children in the country living with disabilities who need special education and that special education is too expensive for them, and taking into consideration that there are no adequate Government supported special education schools in the country; this House urges the Government to establish at least one fully Government supported special education primary school and secondary school in each district to cater for the education of children living with disabilities. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this country has a large number of people living with disabilities. These are people living with various kinds of deformities which could be physical, sensory, mental or other kinds of impairments. We have a total of 3 million Kenyans living with disabilities. Out of these, 1.3 million of them are below 15 years. They are children. About 1.8 million people with disabilities are below the age of 19 years and they still belong to the category of school-going children, but only a small number of them go to school. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, over the centuries, people with disabilities have been neglected across the world. They have been cursed and considered worthless by their societies. They were considered a sign of bad luck to their societies. In fact, some of them were killed at birth and some societies still kill them at birth even today. There has been change of attitude across the world and some societies now put them in homes although they still mistreat them. These people were subjected to isolation and kept in homes or institutions earmarked for them. They faced a lot of hostility from their societies. July 4, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2235 It is good that things have changed a bit, across the world. At the beginning of the last century, several countries realised that these people could also get education. They realised that people with disabilities could learn although others still consider them as slow learners. These people are very brilliant. A good number of them are more brilliant than some of the normal people in our society. At the beginning of the last century, countries in the United States of American and Europe developed schools for the disabled, where people with disabilities could be taught. Education was developed for people living with disabilities, so that there were schools which could cater for people with specific disabilities. In this country, people living with disabilities were catered for immediately after the Second World War. That is when the colonial Government thought of coming up with schools to take care of the soldiers who had been disabled in war."
}