Disability is not Inability

A case for totally free education for PWDS.
16th October 2006

The free & education programme initiated in 2003 by the New Government opened new horizons for access to education to many Kenyans of all background including PWDS. the previous user fee system was a large. Burden to many families considering widespread Poverty. HIV/AIDS rising costs and increasing cost of education.

Free education between took some of these cost from parents to govt. their cost of teaching materials, chalk teaches and often support services mored to Govt. these cost a part for Teachers was totaled some 2,250 per child, which is what the govt distributed to schools. This unit cost has one challenge to PWD.

First the cost of building Facilities has of late been again transferred to community. The fort contributes here and there but the bulle is the responsibility of community. Seen CDF funds being used & building/expand schools. The unity cost for PWDs is higher to achieve equal access to education PWDs unit cost of education is challenged by thro issues.

A) It depends on the disability and secondly the implementation of inclusive education is facing insurmountable challenges especially with overflowing classes and poor teaching skills. Many deaf and blind children may not fit well unto a regular class. The teacher pupil ratio is over weling ever for a special education skilled teacher.

The deaf/blind sensory PWDs need adapted teaching materials. The cost of these are nof equal those of regular children signed T book brailed Text books are costly and need special arrange is to mass produced and be bought by schools countrywide. Many schools with Units for special needs children either limp the together under one teacher who is paid by Bog while fundraising from donors or integrate the without knowing their special needs.

Now almost four years down the road to free education of children with disabilities is still untroden. More children w/disabilities are out of school. Several proposals have been tabled to bring sanity to special Education but lack of proactive Leadership and funding are the main challenges. There is too much dependency on donor touting while very few people can lobby MOE to allocate serious resources to Special Education. NCPWD is still young and may not have the muscle yet to push for to tally free education for Children with disabilities.

Real cost of education for PWD is needed. Some at estimates costs Kshs 10-15,000 per year per child. While this many look a large sun estimates say there are about 100-350,000 children in and out of school this many mean about 5 billion annually which is a cupful in an education budget hitting over 100bill.

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