By Victor Kyalo
Achieving equity and inclusion in education requires recognizing and addressing the obstacles that limit every individual to thrive academically.
According to the UNESCO Report 2022, 1.8 million Kenyan children aged between six and eighteen are not in school. These entail marginalized groups that consist of girls, refugees, the needy, persons with special needs, and street children.
To accomplish this, the government aims at addressing the challenges that face special needs education, as well as adult and continuing education. This is a key step in promoting social justice and boosting economic development.
Many schools nationwide are not equipped enough to cater to special needs children and thus limiting their access to quality education. It is a challenge to integrate schools when there is no assessment of children with special needs to determine the support they need in learning.
This is a hindrance in the admission of such young individuals in regular schools resulting in exclusion. A framework for the assessment, referral, and placement of learners with special needs and disabilities has been institutionalized by the government to ensure each child gets a basic minimum level.
A school calendar incorporates curriculum and co-curriculum activities and children with disabilities may face limitations to participate. Many schools countrywide lack the necessary specialized learning materials and assistive devices like wheelchairs and braille.
While the country gives Ksh2,300 per year to every special need education in support of their education, that seems not enough to provide for special resources. Some of these assistive devices are not readily enough in the market and thus, become a challenge for the parent or the school to purchase them.
The government is committed to putting in place strategies for rationalized production, repair, maintenance, and distribution of specialized learning resources, assistive devices, and adapted technologies.
UNHCR 2022 report states that Kenya has over 280,000 refugees and asylum seekers aged 4 to 18, and half of them do not go to school. Some underlying challenges include insufficient teachers, overcrowded institutions, and few numbers of schools in the camp areas. The country’s administration is keen on constructing more camp-based schools and deploying more teachers.
Additionally, some of the special needs learners are unable to acquire education from the school due to their intense disability. Thus, they require a home-based programme to ensure no child is left away from school. The shortage of specially trained teachers to serve the various needs of these children poses a problem. Therefore, the government is dedicated to deploying more trainers with specialized skills including braille trainers to such learners to help acquire education.
Every level of education in Kenya entails an assessment that ranks an individual’s capability. The government has gone a further step in ensuring both curriculum and curriculum-based assessments are designed to meet the needs of special needs learners.
Period poverty has been a key effect on every schoolgirl including those with disabilities as they are financially disadvantaged. It is the government’s commitment to ensure access to enough sanitary towels and school bathrooms that are constantly equipped.
Each child’s dream is to be brought up by parents with a high literacy level to monitor their learning achievements and help them exploit their full potential. They help them structure their fundamental principles in social and emotional growth while still young. For that reason, having learned adults in the country is a boost to social and economic development.
Some of these adults have failed to acquire education due to various challenges including lack of fees and ignorance. Illiteracy counters the government’s effort to excel in all development sectors like agriculture, especially among adults. They are unable to exercise their democratic right thus restricting their participation in the country’s industrialization.
After gaining independence in 1963, the importance of curbing adult illiteracy was acknowledged and its efforts to address it have continued since then. Adult and Continuing Education (ACE) is an effort to realize equitability and accessibility of education to every citizen nationwide.
In spite of that, the ACE has been faced with many barriers restraining its actualization. Lack of enough learning materials, inconsistency in class attendance, and lack of enough teachers have led to the closure of some ACE centers. Inappropriate data for literacy levels and low levels of awareness of the ACE programme are leading to low participation. Carrying out regular literacy surveys is a move to ensure the inclusion of every adult irrespective of their social background.
Kenya has 197 community learning centers in all the 47 counties which are not enough to inseminate adult education. In relation to this, the government is improving existing community learning centers and facilitating them with enough learning materials and trainers.
Adults and Continuing Education use a different curriculum from that of children due to their differences in needs. Nevertheless, the basic education curriculum that is tied up to Curriculum-Based Competence (CBC) does not incorporate marginalized groups. The country is determined to review the ACE and Adult Teacher Education curricula to be compatible with CBC.
Collaboration among various stakeholders including non-government organizations, communities, and educators is essential in achieving these goals. The investment made in these efforts will lead to quality education, inclusion, and accessibility, therefore raising literacy levels among differently abled persons, adults and other marginalized groups nationwide.