SENATOR Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III pushed for the creation of a pool of specialized teachers to ensure that learning resource centers for children with disabilities would be adequately manned.

Pimentel made the suggestion during interpellation on Senate Bill 1907 or the proposed Act Instituting Services and Programs for Learners with Disabilities in Support of Inclusive Education.

He said that while he supports the bill, an out-of-the-box thinking would ensure that learners with disabilities would be able to function and be productive members of the society.

Senator Pia Cayetano also suggested improvements on the measure seeking to institute services and programs for learners with disabilities in support of inclusive education. She stressed the need for a provision that would generate job opportunities by offering a career path for specialists who will be hired for the operation of Inclusive Learning Resource Centers.

Cayetano said the plantilla structure for guidance counsellors was not “encouraging.”

“If we cannot fill the guidance counsellor positions, what more those other specialized positions? So beyond recognizing it, I think we need to really craft stronger provisions that ensure that these positions are created and even the career path so that it could really become something that a student would look forward to,” Cayetano said.

Cayetano said the bill should ensure that children with disabilities would not be deprived of their rights to inclusive, equitable and quality education.

The senator asked how learners with disabilities, such as her son who was born deaf, mute and blind and could not walk, could survive in an “inclusive environment.”

She said other countries have specialized teachers and equipment to address the needs of these learners.

“Maybe with similar or otherwise complex needs as my son’s, it would be difficult to put them in a regular classroom setting and they would be put in  another classroom setting where their needs would be better attended to. So how would that work in this bill?” she asked.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, sponsor of the bill, said the measure aims to establish inclusive learning resource centers that will be staffed by specialists who will assess the needs of the learner with disability.