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Kenya facing shortage of skilled sign language teachers
Deaf pupils entertain guests during Madaraka Day celebration at Jomo Kenyatta Sports ground in Kisumu on June 1, 2014. The country faces a shortage of trained personnel to teach the overwhelming number of deaf pupils. FILE PHOTO | JACOB OWITI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Speaking at the launch of a manual for parents and guardians of children who are deaf, the chairman of Kenya Society for Deaf Children Mr Francis Ng’ang’a said most families do not know how to communicate with deaf children therefore isolating them.
- According to one of the pupils who only identified himself as Francis, the deaf community in the country faces a shortage of learning materials such as dictionaries and story books written in the Kenyan sign language.
- According to KICD approximately 200,000 children live with hearing impairment. However only 8,000 of the population are able to attend deaf schools therefore limiting the access to education for the remaining number.
The country faces a shortage of trained personnel to teach the overwhelming number of deaf pupils, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) has said.
The institute claimed that most deaf children do not acquire an education due to the lack of information and a shortage of trained teachers.
