Deaf Population in Kenya

A recent survey of all disabled people in the country was conducted and shows that about 4.6% of Kenyans experience some sort of disability (Kenya National Survey for Persons with Disabilities, 2008). In a population of about 37 million people, it is estimated that about 1.6% or around 600,000 Kenyans are Deaf. Exact figures are yet to be obtained because there is no specific census in place to know the number of Deaf population in the country.
The government of Kenya through its National Coordinating Agency for Population development conducted this survey with a view to establish the size of people with disabilities in the country, distribution of people with disabilities in the country, demographic, socio-economic, socio-cultural characteristic of people with disabilities, the nature, types and causes of PWDS, specific problems faced by PWDS by gender, coping mechanisms and needs of PWDS and nature of services and rehabilitation programmes available for PWDS by types. The survey results concluded that 4.6% of Kenyans are PWDS. In their preliminary report it presents different results for different PWDS however, a lot is needed to be done to determine the precision case of deaf and their education status. While appreciate the efforts put by the survey team, a lot is still need to be done to explore the cause of poor deaf education as the survey only indicated that PWDS who had attained only pre-primary education had the highest proportion(96%) of those perceived ability without use of assistive devices as a big problem. The Proportion reduces with higher educational attainment, declining to (77%) among those had attained university education.