By Abigael Kirui
It’s Time to Eliminate the Barriers
With special schools, disability policies and even an increasing number of assistive programs, Kenya is still moving in the direction of inclusive education. However, one question is still frequently disregarded: why do we still divide students according to their disabilities?
Real inclusion isn’t about putting people into separate circles-it’s about weaving all students disabled and non-disabled into the same kind of classroom life. When that happens, everyone gets the chance to learn, join in, and grow together; without it, what we call inclusion is just a polite way of keeping some kids outside.
Special Schools Are Not the Whole Solution
Special schools absolutely matter, they can provide easy routines and resources for learners with very deep or unique needs. Yet when those schools become the first and only answer for every disabled student, we wind up locking doors and missing chances for ordinary friendships and everyday mixing.
The Ministry of Education has announced the recruitment of serving teachers for a two-year full-time Special Needs Education (SNE) Diploma course at the Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE) beginning in 2025.The programme targets current Teachers Service Commission (TSC) employees who wish to specialise in teaching learners with disabilities. Because of that gap, many families are forced into special schools not because it is best for their child, but because the mainstream option is simply unavailable. Special education therefore has to sit inside the regular school system, ready to help, not to fence off.
Inclusion Means Learning Side by Side
When students with different abilities share the same classroom, the whole culture grows kinder and more flexible. Everyone learns how to explain, to wait, to adapt, and that preparation gives them the social muscle to move comfortably through a world built for many kinds of bodies and minds.
Ironically, this separation disappears in the professional world, where disabled and non-disabled individuals are expected to collaborate as equals. This gap highlights a contradiction: schools that fail to integrate learners fully are preparing them for a world that demands inclusion. Why not start that inclusion from the classroom?
Separate Is Not Equal
When Kenya signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the country promised that every child would learn on the same terms as neighbours. Yet when schools isolate disabled children, we break that promise.
Our Basic Education Act of 2013 and Article 54 of the Constitution also call for equal access and say discrimination has no place in learning. Still, good words mean little without ramps, Braille books, trained staff, and attitudes that treat every child with respect. The purpose of the Act is to ensure that all children in Kenya are provided with a free and compulsory primary education. Both children with and without disabilities should be treated ‘equally’ which involves both the same treatment as well as different treatment based on the need of some children for accommodations.
Unity in Diversity Starts in the Classroom
The sooner we put children of every ability in the same room, the sooner society learns to value difference. Inclusion chips away at stigma, makes diversity ordinary, and teaches teamwork from the ground up.
Picture the professionals Kenya could raise if every graduate carried real experience of studying besides, not out of pity for, classmates who learn differently.
From Sympathy to Solidarity. Inclusion is not charity. It is justice.
Getting there calls for solid teacher training at every level like; accessible classrooms, toilets and play areas. Learning materials like Braille books, screen readers and sign-language interpreters.
Policy implementation with real accountability
A Closer Look: Daystar University’s Steps Toward Inclusion
As a Daystar student, I’ve seen the university take some real steps toward including disabled people. By far the most impressive move was the 2021 launch of the Daystar Institute of Disability Studies (DIDS), which now offers a Diploma in Disability Studies and trains future advocates and educators to push for wider inclusion on campus and beyond.
(DIDS – Daystar University) (https://dids.daystar.ac.ke/about)
The university is also building a Resource Centre for Visually Disabled Students with help from the Kenya Society for the Blind and tech partner Bitech. The centre will stock new devices and e-learning tools, giving visually impaired learners a fighting chance in an age driven by screens.
(Daystar Assistive Technology Project) (https://daystar.ac.ke/dccc.html)
Even so, the road is far from smooth. Most lecture halls, dorms and walkways remain hard to navigate for students who use wheelchairs, crutches or other aids. On top of that, many lecturers still need training in inclusive methods so every learner feels valued long after the ramps are installed.
Daystar has begun its journey-but real inclusion still costs time, cash, and honesty, and, above all, it asks us to keep pausing and hearing the words of disabled students themselves.
Conclusion: Inclusion Is Belonging
We cannot talk about equal education if some students are still learning on the side-lines.
Whether it is a dusty government primary school in rural Kenya or a tidy private university like Daystar, the future must be plugged together, not pulled apart. Inclusion means every learner, in every classroom, in every subject.
Let’s not settle for symbolic policies or the odd wheelchair ramp. Let’s build a system where students do not just limp through lessons but feel they own the chairs they sit in.
Because true inclusion is not about separate tracks-it is about weaving all the tracks together.
References:
Ministry of Education Opens Recruitment of Teachers for Special Needs Education Course https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/111398-ministry-education-opens-recruitment-teachers-special-needs-education-course
Ministry of Education (2018). Sector Policy for Learners and Trainees with Disabilities. https://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ressources/kenya_sector_policy_learners_trainees_disabilities.pdf
United Nations (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/disability-rights/united-nations-convention-rights-persons-disabilities-uncrpd
Constitution of Kenya (2010), Article 54. https://www.klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/113-chapter-four-the-bill-of-rights/part-3-specific-application-of-rights/220-54-persons-with-disabilities
Basic Education Act (2013), Government of Kenya. https://www.saflii.org/za/journals/ADRY/2014/2.html#:~:text=The%20purpose%20of%20the%20Act%20is%20to%20ensure%20that%20all,of%20some%20children%20for%20accommodations.
Daystar Institute of Disability Studies – [https://dids.daystar.ac.ke/](https://dids.daystar.ac.ke)
Daystar Assistive Technology Centre – [https://daystar.ac.ke/dccc.html](https://daystar.ac.ke/dccc.html)