Inclusive education on the rise

Updated on: Friday, November 04, 2011

There is a steady increase in the number of disabled children attending regular schools in State.

Various steps taken to help Children With Special Needs (CWSN) has resulted in the number going up from 1,59,373 in 2010 to 1,85,909 this year.

The figure may not be big, but the fact that inclusive education is gaining ground is significant. In keeping with Right to Education Act, Rajiv Vidya Mission is taking many bold steps to integrate CWSN in regular schools.

“We want to ensure that no child remains out of school,” says R.V. Chandravadan, State Project Director, RVM.

Escort allowance

The main factor that gave fillip to inclusive education is provision of escort allowance of Rs.150 per month. Parents now have no excuse - rather an incentive to take their disabled child to the school on a wheel chair if he can't use a tricycle himself.

Another important factor is defraying of transport expenses of disabled children for visiting Mandal Resource Centre to avail physiotherapy facility.

Each child is given Rs.100 per visit. A total of 16,919 children are availing physiotherapy and 6,523 are availing escort allowance.

But what really acted as the catalyst is supply of assisted devices. A study recently conducted showed that the attendance of CWSN is more than 90 per cent in any given month.

Appliances like callipers, crutches, artificial limbs, Braille kits, behind the ear aids are encouraging children to attend school.

Using special aids

Nearly 63 per cent students in Medak, West Godavari, Kadapa and Karimnagar districts agree that they are able to read and write after using the appliances.

There are a total of 2.18 lakh disabled children, maximum being in Srikakulam (3.07 per cent) and least in Ranga Reddy (1.10 per cent). Children with learning disability top the table (56,834) followed by mental retardation (35,086).

RVM has identified 13,919 children for supply of assisted devices this year. Of them 4,000 have been covered and the remaining will be supplied with the devices by December 3, World Disabled Day.

Shortage of teachers

Shortage of special educators to handle CWSN is a big drawback though. As against the required 5,000 teachers, only 1,500 are available now.

This shortfall is sought to be overcome by making all candidates appearing for D.Ed to compulsorily study a paper on inclusive education.

“We will be appointing 4,309 itinerant teachers once the D.Ed result is announced,” said B. D. V. Prasada Murthy, co-ordinator, Inclusive Education.

Efforts are also on to increase the upper age limit for providing elementary education to CWSN from 14 to 18 years as per the Persons with Disability Act, 1996. Government is expected to issue orders in this connection shortly.

Inclusive education on the rise

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