Special needs children neglected

• Author: Willene Holness, Brigitte Clark, Ruth Nyamadzawo and Denis Moogi
• Published date: 09 May 2023
• Publication title: Star, The (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Unfortunately, however, in South Africa and Kenya, children with disabilities are frequently excluded from ECE. In parts of both countries, many parents lack the ability to identify their children’s disabilities unless these are physically evident. This leads to drastic delays for such children in reaching their developmental milestones

Worse, at the community level, many cultural and religious beliefs attribute children’s disabilities (whether physical, developmental or psycho- social) to curses, incest, a punishment for past-life sins or sins committed by family members. Consequently, families living in these communities might hide their children with disabilities or seek spiritual or witchcraft solutions, rather than present their children for assessment at a health or educational assessment facility.

Such children might even be expelled from their families and denied the right to a name and identity and the benefits of registration in terms of access to a disability grant.

Further, discriminatory admission requirements or barriers to inclusion may be faced by parents and caregivers who attempt to access ECE for such children, as many Kenyan and South African ECE centres are not adequately equipped with assistive technology, appropriate teaching materials, or training and support for practitioners.

Thus children with disabilities face significant challenges in accessing high-quality ECD services in mainstream ECD centres and in specialised centres that cater specifically to the needs of children with disabilities. The few specialised centres for the children are often far from the child’s home, particularly in rural areas.

Some children with disabilities are forced to remain at home where domestic financial resources to assist with ECE are frequently limited as only children with severe disabilities qualify for the Care Dependency Grant in the case of South Africa.

Kenya and South Africa have undergone law reform processes over the past few years, with a shift in the provision of ECE to the ministries responsible for education (in 2017 for Kenya and in 2021 for South Africa). The Kenyan government appears to possess greater political will towards entrenching a universal right to early childhood education for all children, including those with disabilities.

In this respect, the Kenyan Basic Education Act (2013) and the Sector Policy for Learners with Disabilities (2018) mandated the strengthening of early identification, assessment, and placement of...