MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ commitment to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of Education for All by 2015 includes providing opportunities to children with disabilities (CWDs).

The government, in its plans for basic education, is ensuring that children with special needs are getting access to quality education.

Records of the Department of Education (DepEd) show that there are about 197,000 children with special needs who are now enrolled in public schools. Of this number 95,000 are CWDs, which include mental or physical disabilities. The types of disabilities  include learning disability, hearing impairment, visual impairment, mental retardation, behavioral problem, orthopedic handicap, autism, speech defect, chronic illness, and cerebral palsy.

More sectors are getting involved in the cause of special children. Laws have been passed on their rights and privileges. DepEd continues to craft programs for children with special needs to provide them greater access to formal education as many parents cannot afford to send their children to private schools that specialize in such children.

Senate Bill 1427 seeks to establish Special Educational Centers in cities, provinces, and municipalities, that will have pre-elementary and elementary education for CWDs. House Bill 00082 proposes to establish at least one special education center for each school division and at least three special education centers with special needs.

The country’s 276 Special Education (SPED) Centers get DepEd subsidies to enable them to deliver quality educational services to CWDs. This year, SPED funding amounts to R115 million, with funds set aside for activities such as pupil development, training, educational visits, camp activities, sports and pupil participation in SPED-related projects.

These special children should be able to lead happy, normal lives, and that they are assimilated in the mainstream, through interventions such as health, education and training, in collaboration with other sectors involved in the uplift of their welfare.