Deputy Dastan Bekeshev noted that on March 21, the day of celebrating Nowruz in Kyrgyzstan, the International Day of People with Down Syndrome is also observed. He highlighted the difficulties faced by the parents of such children.
“Some children do not receive a personal assistant. They are not accepted into schools. Why does this happen? This is not only an issue of education but also of socialization,” he emphasized, urging the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor, Social Security, and Migration to address these issues.
Gulnara Akimbaeva added that the rehabilitation of children with Down syndrome, autism, and speech development delays is an important social problem.
“Among the main difficulties in this area is the lack of qualified specialists in mental health and working with special needs children. Over the past 15 years, the number of psychiatrists in the country has almost halved. Currently, there are only 136, while the norm is one psychiatrist for every 40,000 people. To resolve the situation, attention must be paid to training personnel. There are no systematic programs in domestic universities for training social workers and educators. To attract qualified personnel, training should be funded from the budget. Without a sufficient number of specialists, the rehabilitation of children cannot be effective,” she noted.
She also mentioned that the current salary of staff at social centers for the disabled is only 22,000 soms.“This amount does not reflect the complexity of the work of specialists who carry out educational, medical, and psychological-pedagogical functions,” Akimbaeva added and proposed that the government review the training programs for specialists, increase the number of budget-funded places in universities, and raise the salaries of social workers and specialists at rehabilitation centers.
