House Committee Advocates for Doubling Special School Capitation
The National Assembly Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity has requested that the Ministry of Education double capitation for schools with special needs to alleviate the issues that teachers experience in those institutions.
At St. Jude Malaba Special School for Mentally Challenged Children, the Committee Chaired by Mandera East Member of Parliament (MP), Yusuf Adan Haji, stated that the government should prioritize schools for children with special needs.
Teso North MP, Oku Kaunya, along with Yussuf Hassan and Fred Ikana, stated that stakeholders in the schools they visited emphasized the need to design a curriculum for schools with special needs as well as provide free healthcare to students.
He stated that they would ensure no student with special needs was left behind. He noted that a report would be tabled in parliament to address the welfare of minorities, including the disabled, women, and caregivers, to be provided with stipend by the National Government.
Geoffrey Ekasiba, Executive Secretary of the Kenya National Union of Teachers, Teso Branch, and the Board of Management of Malaba Special School for the Mentally Challenged, urged the Committee to recommend risk allowances for special school teachers, citing their vulnerability to assault by the students they teach.
The Committee solicited feedback from stakeholders in three schools in the Western Region and three more in Nyanza. They will later compose a report before presenting it to the National Assembly for debate.
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Praxidies Ekisa, Head Teacher of Malaba Special School, reported that there are three special needs schools in Teso North: Malaba, Kakemer, and Kakapel, as well as two more in Teso South and a comparable number in Teso Central.
She stated that the institution, which opened its doors to the public in 2001, began with five youngsters and now has a population of 70.
The head teacher reported that the students have benefited from three classrooms costing Sh2.3 million, grants for food and housing from the Ministry of Education, NG-CDF education bursaries, Sh1 million for land purchases, and donations from well-wishers.
The school has seven classrooms that house both classes and the staffroom, two latrines and toilets, one makeshift kitchen made of old iron sheets, two water tanks, and dormitory cum classrooms, one for girls and one for boys.
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Ms. Ekisa cited the institution’s challenges, which include a lack of adequate classrooms, a dining hall, a permanent source of water, land for expansion, proper fencing, a lack of workshops, tools, and equipment for vocational training, a lack of enough teachers and support staff, a lack of a school nurse and therapist, insufficient and delayed Ministry funding, and low parental participation in fee payment.
To chart the school’s future, Ekisa urged the Ministry of Education to make the special school TVET compliant to handle vocational training, increase FPE funding, feed programs for all special schools, increase stakeholder sensitization and advocacy, provide proper enumeration for special school teachers, improve infrastructure, and ensure timely disbursement of capitation funds.
House Committee Advocates for Doubling Special School Capitation
