The government has been challenged to facilitate the training and employment of more teachers for special needs learners to reduce the present low distribution of the tutors in various schools across the country.
Each school in the country should have at least one teacher to deal with the various educational, psychological and physical needs of learners with various disabilities, most which go for years undetected.
There are hundreds and perhaps millions of innocent children with special learning needs which requires attention and that could be dealt with through ruthless training of teachers to gain special education skills before hiring them.
According to the Principal of Likoni School for Visually Impaired in Kwale County Elizabeth Ngari, learners with special needs across various parts of Coast and Kenya lack expert teachers to first detect their problems and then teach them.
Due to the shortages, their various special learning needs took too long or went undetected and that has impacted negatively on the children’s access to education and other correctional interventions.
Abandoning of many of such innocent children, the special education experts have said that it has continued to take place despite the fact that majority have the potential to achieve substantial levels of education and lifelong skills.
Where the government has managed to post special education teachers, Ngare claims the same are overworked and have inadequate time to interact with the special learners, some who started to attend school late.
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“Issues of special learners are normally detected at a very early age. They should interact with qualified teachers at the formative ages in the Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) stages hence the need for such teachers across all schools,” said Ngare.
Interventions, she said needs a cross section of skills some touching on the ability to detect mental and physical advancement and progression issues and some of the remedies sometimes take long periods to be successful tackled.
Schools, Ngare also said need some special facilities and equipment to cater for learners with special needs to ensure that the qualified teachers do not have to improvise some equipment and space, issues which compromise time required for lesson.
Meanwhile, some parents whose children have been placed in special units have called for ways to reduce discrimination and stigma associated with the specials learning units.
One of the affected parent at a primary school in Mbeere South said learner need orientation to avoid stigmatizing the learners by describing them as special.
The parents termed the situation unfortunate even when these children behaved normally.
‘’It is not comfortable to have your child treated in a special way. Even when the child has not done anything strange merely because he or she was put into a special learners’ unit in school. There are lessons needed for all of us and especially learners,’’ said the concerned parent.
While appreciating that teachers handling special learners had the skills and orientation to deal with stigma, the parent suggested that some lessons to orient school communities on positive ways to deal with special learners and avoid stigma be introduced.
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