PRESENTATION IN UBUNTU SPECIAL NEEDS & INCLUSIVE EDUCATION CONFERENCE – Dr. JOHN BOSCO KIINGATI (PhD)
Event organized by a collaboration between Africa Special Needs Network (ASNEN), Ministry of Education (MOE), Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), and The Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA).
A multi-sectoral approach to inclusion, where various sectors collaborate to ensure that no child is left behind, is a powerful concept.
These questions aim to stimulate a rich conversation among panelists, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of a multi-sectoral approach to inclusive education and how it can be leveraged to ensure that no child is left behind.
Inclusion refers to:
- making space for all types of students to learn side-by-side in school programs, from academics to extra-curriculars.
- Valuing and embracing diversity, inclusive education.
- Welcoming the contributions of all students in the classroom through a sense
of belonging and shared goals.
Multi-sectoral refers to different human units or human organizations coming together to think of a co-joint interventions.
Who are the key stakeholders that should be involved in a multi-sectoral approach
to inclusion?
National
– Article 54 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 provides that a person with any disability is entitled to among other things, to access educational institutions and facilities for persons with disabilities that are integrated.
– All ministries are involved because persons with special needs are all over. However, the National Council for Persons with Disabilities(NCPWD) is a state corporation established by an Act of Parliament; the Persons with Disabilities Act No. 14 of 2003 and set up in November 2004, is the main coordinating organ.
Regional
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa; adopted in January 29th, 2018.
NB: We cannot forget here present Africa Special Needs Network (ASNEN), Ministry of Education (MOE), Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), and The Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA).
How can they [we all] collectively contribute to ensuring no child is left behind?
1. What each of us has at the individual level:
Life: Freely granted
Health: Freely granted
Time: Freely granted
Expertise: We have been gifted: parent, maternity, school, security,… (that we did not build)
2. Action:
(i) Open my eyes and look around me
(ii) Be interested in the discourse and in the person with special needs:
(iii) Awareness: What does the discourse on Special Needs entail?
Inter-Sector Collaboration to support inclusive education
Vertical: Governance and financing between levels of government in the educational sector: National- Regional (County)- Local Levels
NB: Kenya has a national policy framework to promote holistic development of all children and it seeks to identify and assess the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized children throughout the republic (Republic of Kenya 2009).
Horizontal: Professions-service providers- policy groups- public and private sector come together to set up localized intervention strategies Kenyans have an unexplained apathy when it comes to reporting what has been done: However, I was able to come across a baseline finding where:
(I) Kenyan Ministry of Education and a consortium of international development organizations worked together to develop an intervention project to promote effective disability inclusive ECDE practices in Kenya (Jeyam, de Kadt, Muuo, Schmidt, & Okello, 2022).
How do these collaborations lead to a more holistic and effective approach to addressing diverse needs?
1. Awareness
2. Collaboration rather than competition
3. Enhancement of replicability; lessons from each other
4. Shared resources
How can different sectors align their goals and objectives to create a cohesive strategy for inclusive education and ensuring that every child receives the support they need?
1. – Cohesive strategy rather than a competition based strategy:
Male versus Female: Competition (I do not blame anyone for our educational system taught us
that to know is to be number one) the fact that versus collaboration (individual level)
PPP: Public Private Partnership (policy level)
What strategies or mechanisms have proven effective in breaking down silos between sectors, allowing for smoother information sharing, communication, and coordination?
1. “Silo mentality prevents stakeholders from designing appropriate strategies leading to solutions” (Price Waterhouse Coopers, n.d).
From this writeup causes of silos include:
2a- Linear mode of operation: In social Transformation it is called banking system: Only I am the monopoly of knowledge; only X knows how best to accomplish that specific task.
2b- Fractional ownership of interventions: This interventions belongs to X and to no other
2c- Geographical dispersion: This strategy and intervention belongs only to people of that region.
How can a multi-sectoral approach contribute to early intervention and prevention strategies for children at risk of falling behind in their education?
a) Identification of persons involved
(1. by virtue of their existential identity: what a woman can do is different from what a man can do; yet both are complementary)
(2. by virtue of their role-based identities: parents, teachers,/educators, government officials, child care departments, counsellors, medical practitioners etc.
b) Inclusivity of the persons involved: respect for each individual and what they can offer.
c) Clarity of roles and responsibilities: including openness, transparency an accountability in allocated resources.
d) Shared investigation of what needs to be done; (5 W’s & 1 H)
What are some common barriers that emerge when attempting a multi-sectoral approach? How can these barriers be overcome to ensure effective collaboration?
a) Silo mentality: linear mode of operation (only X can do that); fractional ownership (only X should do that); geographical dispersion/exclusivity
b) Ethnic (negative ethnicity) barriers
c) Corruption: secrecy, sense of entitlement, materialism/ consumerism
How does data sharing and analysis play a role in a multi-sectoral approach to inclusion? How can data-driven insights guide decision-making across sectors?
a) Interventions that are supported by research make use of experiential/indigenous knowledge. Due to this,
(i) they are owned by the beneficiaries
(ii) due to (i) they are sustainable in nature
b) Research-generated interventions have been perceived, hypothesized, tested and findings generated.
c) Sharing this information enhances inclusivity since the very process of generating these data is inclusive. Due to this inclusive process, a multi-sectoral approach to the actualization of the findings, is anticipated.
NB: Decision-making has to be informed by findings from data. Only then are they owned by the beneficiaries and follow the path of being sustainable.
How can policy development be influenced by a multi-sectoral perspective to ensure that the needs of marginalized and vulnerable children are addressed comprehensively?
Internationally and regionally (Africa and East Africa), Kenya is part of the protocols (official procedure or system of rules governing affairs of state or diplomatic occasions) and treaties (a formally concluded and ratified agreement between states) involving the member states.
At this level, there are policies that govern each of the member states.
Informed by these protocols and treaties, Kenya’s constitution is quite comprehensive and inclusive, attracting international ratings.
In it, there are articles on inclusivity and on dealing with disabilities, and with Vulnerable children. Derived from these, the parliament (National Assembly and that from the Senate) have both committees that have the task of making laws towards the betterment of the citizens (those with special needs not left behind).
How does a multi-sectoral approach involve local communities and parents in fostering inclusion and addressing barriers to education?
It is with the introduction of the free Primary Education and with the inception of the Subsidized Secondary Education, that illiteracy has positively and effectively started being fought. Only two decades have passed after the inception of the first and I guess a decade since the inception of the second. Prior to these interventions, up to 60% of Kenyans were grappling with illiteracy, and with it disease.
How can a multi-sectoral approach to inclusion be sustained over the long term, especially when political or organizational changes occur within sectors?
From the times of the Bretton Woods interventions bringing to play the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, there developed a school of thought that culminated in planting and nurturing the seed of dependency among the African. This worked hand in hand with the narrative planted and nurtured by the first missionary, where the African was meant to be given assistance, thus sadly developing the attitude of entitlement. While these two world interventions were intended, and had a lot of good, the negative effects were also noted.
The Margret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan-led Structural Adjustment Programmes and the current World Bank
structures in Kenya, where they monitor and offer advisory dictates on living at one’s means is a constant reminder of the importance of sustainability. We have to take care of our own, rather than blame while expecting others to procedurally come to our aid.
Nature’s essence is in being innovative/creative and in being unique. Persons living with Special Needs are part of the expression of that very nature, and so they are part of us and shall continue to be part of us. It is not nature’s mistake. The mistake would be if nature produced all of us in a robotic, assembly-line mode, where all of us were the same. A sustainable multisectoral approach to inclusion, needs to start from an understanding that persons living with special needs are part of nature. In thinking that they are not, we device scientific and objective mechanisms of excluding them since they do not fall under the natural sciences’ “normal curve”.
They are outliers. After so much time excluding them, we then start thinking about inclusivity. A sustainable way of embracing inclusion is to address the very nature of human exclusivity, in relation to persons with special needs or rather with special giftedness’s.
Political and organizational mutations are also part of nature’s process of change. When we train children in our homes and in our learning institutions to get excited at the specialty of persons tagged as “disabled”, since this is nature’s way of expressing her creativity and uniqueness, we shall be positively dealing with exclusion. When we unconditionally listen and pay attention to what nature is telling us through these special creations, we shall hear what their contribution is to our development. This is a sustainable way of dealing with inclusivity.
Conclusion
The human species is the single creation in all species that is known to defy routine and reality. It is also the singled out species that understand what is wrong, yet goes ahead to do it; knowing all too well of the adverse consequences, yet hoping that these adverse effects shall not befall it.
Nature, is true to itself, and part of that truth is that creativity and uniqueness are part of her. On this note therefore, persons with special needs are part of nature’s expression of her ability to create and to be unique. Nature is not an assembly line or a robotized component. If nature does not surprise us, then it fails to be nature.
In relation to persons with special needs, such is nature. Our system, informed by natural science, laws and theories, and more so by the normal curve principles, taught us to exclude that which failed to fall within the 68% of normalcy (I say normalcy with a lot of reservation). All other was abnormal and an outlier. Such is the way we gradually learnt to exclude persons with special needs.
Today’s invitation is to re-look at nature with awe, and realize that these persons are a revelation of nature. Nature gives them to us with a purpose. When we re-look at them with awe, we shall see what nature is telling us through them, and we shall see the unique purpose for which they came into being. Only then, shall we move towards sustainably including them for indeed they should never have been excluded in the first place.
