Sh198 million released to special needs schools
Members of the Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers at a past event.
What you need to know:
- Sh113.7 million was sent to the SNE and integrated learning primary schools while Sh84.5 million was sent to SNE secondary schools.
- Special Schools Heads Association of Kenya chairman Peter Sitienei said the funds released by the government are not enough.
The government has released Sh198.2 million to Special Needs Education (SNE) primary and secondary schools.
Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Jwan on Friday said Sh113.7 million was sent to the SNE and integrated learning primary schools while Sh84.5 million was sent to SNE secondary schools.
The release of the funds comes even as primary SNE schools lamented that they are financially starved as the cost of educating the children is too high.
Special Schools Heads Association of Kenya (SSHAK) chairman Peter Sitienei said the funds released by the government are not enough and that the government is underestimating the cost of running the schools.
“This year, the government only released a quarter of the schools grants, this week we have received the other quarter, which is not enough,” he said
Medical support staff
Mr Sitienei said the schools require house mothers and fathers, cleaners and specialised medical support staff among other non-teaching staff to take care of the children.
“All these staff are paid from the grants released by the government, which in most schools, results in underpayment because of the low funding,” he said.
“ The non-teaching staff are employed by the schools and need to be paid on time, they also require better salaries as they are engaged in demanding jobs as they take care of the children,” said Mr Sitienei.
He revealed that the average payroll for each schools is between Sh200,000 and Sh300,000 monthly, which translates to between Sh2.4 million and Sh3.6 million per year.
Yet, annually, the government spends about Sh655 million on basic education for learners with special needs. A total of Sh1, 420 is released annually per learner under the free primary education programme. An additional Sh2,300 is provided per learner, making a total of Sh3,720 per year per learner in SNE primary schools.
Commonest disabilities
In secondary schools, the government allocates Sh 57,974 annually for children with special needs. This is higher than the Sh22,244 per year for the other learners.
Mr Sitienei said that while the schools appreciate the effort being made by the government, there is need for the Education ministry to use a research-based approach to find out how much it costs to educate a child with a particular disability.
“It is more expensive to education a blind child than a physically challenged child,” he said.
The association head said the government should consider using the differentiated unit cost funding model for the SNE schools depending on the children’s disability.
The commonest disabilities among the learners are visual impairment, physical disability, intellectual disability, hearing impairment, and speech and language impairment.
