The Thika School for the Visually Impaired is one of the special needs schools in Kiambu County. [Photo/ kidseducationkenya.wordpress.com]

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Enrolment of special needs children in Kiambu County is set to increase after the rollout of the new curriculum next year.The county’s Special Education Officer Alice Mwangi said the new syllabus has an Individualised Education Programme (IEP) concept, which has been developed by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to help assess each child’s capacity at a personal level.“This gives a better platform unlike in the old syllabus where the special needs children were made to compete with the regular students,” said Mwangi.She said in the old syllabus, special children would perform poorly as stakeholders in the education sector would also ignore them. “The special children are usually despised even in schools because they do not add any value to the mean standard score,” she added.She said the move, coupled with stigmatisation and ridicule by the society, makes many parents opt to keep their children at home.However, over the past few months, scores of special children have been taken to the assessment center in Kiambu after which they are referred to various special schools.Mwangi says if taken seriously, the IEP concept will help develop and nurture talents such as artwork, music, and drawing, among others. She, however, said KICD needs to develop a more elaborate programme for the special kids based on their challenges so as to make it easier for their teachers to take them through the syllabus.“There is little attention being given to this sector, which limits what is being delivered to the pupils. Despite their challenges, these children have a huge potential to become productive in the society,” she said.Kiambu has four special schools and 136 units. Mwangi, however, feels the centers are not enough to cater for the number of special needs children in the county. “There are many autistic children in Kiambu, so we are lobbying for a special school for them here,” she said.