Cry for special kids: India
New Delhi, July 2: A central panel set up to examine the sensitivity of India's education system towards children with special needs has accused state governments across the country of not even maintaining a count of such children.
No state has an "effective" and "accurate" mechanism to count disabled children or analyse their needs, a standing committee of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE), India's apex education advisory body, has said.
In a report submitted to human resource development minister Arjun Singh today, the committee has also recommended that the BEd programme for special needs education be revised, top HRD ministry officials said.
The current CABE, including the standing committee, has been wound up, but the report has only now been finalised.
"The committee has said that the current curriculum for the BEd programme is outdated. They have also suggested that the revision be conducted on a more regular basis," a source said.
All states have been asked to establish mechanisms to accurately determine the number of disabled students and analyse their needs, a member on the committee said.
The report comes even as the Centre upgrades its commitment to the secondary education of disabled students from "integrating" them into the mainstream to making India's education system "inclusive".
The change in commitment, to be articulated in a new scheme currently under examination by the Planning Commission, places the onus of ensuring comfort and dignity in secondary education on the educational institution. At present, though schools cannot refuse admission to a student because of a disability, the latter is responsible for merging into the mainstream.
"We were shocked that the states have not even kept data essential for ensuring adequate facilities and special needs teachers," the committee member said.
While 16 states had "inadequate" data, the remaining could not produce any statistics on special needs children, the member said.
Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com
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