THE CURRENT SITUATION OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION IN KENYA 2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION 2 Governmental support for people with disabilities 2 Other legislation to promote opportunities for people with disabilities has been drafted. These include: 3 Legislation 4 Key ministries and agencies responsible for disability issues 5 Policies 5 Programmes 6 Challenges 8 Recommendations by The National Council for Persons with Disabilities 10
THE CURRENT SITUATION OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION IN KENYA
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
There is no recent data on the situation of people with disabilities in Kenya. Some numbers are available, although these do not give an accurate picture of the number of disabled people living in the country. Applying the WHO recommended 10 per cent to today’s Kenyan population of approximately 40 million this would indicate that there may be some 4 million disabled people. Many disabled people in Kenya, as in most developing countries in the world, live in poverty have limited opportunities for accessing education, health, suitable housing and employment opportunities. * Recently Kenya inaugurated the African union specialized agency for disability prevention and research in the continent-the east African region office serves 12 countries that include; Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia ,the Comoros, Somalia Seychelles and Eritrea. The office provides a unified approach to issues of disabilities in all aspects such as the exchange of information organizing for products in the field of rehabilitation, disability prevention and the analysis of the National Policies and laws for Persons with Disabilities. * There are 1.7 million PWDs as per the Kenya National Disability Survey of 2008. The PWDs are disproportionately represented among the poor and tend to be poorer than their counter parts without
