Kenya facing shortage of skilled sign language teachers

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.

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.

“It is sad to note that many parents and guardians of this children do not know how to communicate with them therefore forcing them to live like outcasts in their homes,” he said.

“Most of us do not even realise when children become deaf and what to do when this occurs. We need to be empowered about the importance of these children in the society,” he added.

Pupils from the Agha Khan Primary School lamented over the shortage of teachers which hampers the learning activities for the special needs students.

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.

“We need more trained teachers who are conversant with the Kenyan sign language. We also need our parents to be trained on how to use sign language so that they can easily communicate with us,” he said.

“It is difficult to keep up with current affairs since we are not adequately informed and do not have enough sources of information,” he explained.

According to Francis, communicating with other people is tasking due to their lack of understanding of sign language.

He also said that most people do not want to be associated with them due to the language barrier.

A teacher from Agha Khan said there were not enough trained teachers within the school to teach the deaf pupils.

According to her, there were only four trained teachers serving the whole school compared to about 31 teachers who taught the rest of the students.

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.

According to Kenya Society for Deaf Children trained teachers have the ability to patiently deal with deaf children and understand their needs.

KICD called upon the government to allocate more funds towards the education of deaf children and other special needs students.