Dear Friends,
For me, this report means, all the efforts of RCI (Rehabilitation Council of India) are taking overseas flights for jobs and this brain drain is surely going to cost us dearly. The manpower trained at the cost of ex-chequer is not being used in India except in a handful NGOs, grassroot organisations and Govt. schools etc. Isn't it an irony that even today we don't have any facility of educating a child with disability in a mainstream school in a city like Delhi, forget about a rural school in Jalpaiguri District of West Bengal!?
If I correctly remember, in my earlier posts of 02 January 2009 and 22 December 2008, there was a proposal from Delhi Government that they would open a Model school in each district both for MCD schools and Delhi Govt. Schools so that the needs of students with various disabilities could be met. However, there seem to be no update publicized by the department nor there is any recruitment of special educators by the Education Department of Delhi Govt. This is no excuse and the Court is rightly shocked over such lapses.
Not only there is an urgent need to sensitize & train mainstream teachers about needs and abilities of children with disabilities but also the Principals, vice principals, Headmistress/ headmasters, Education Officers and supporting staff who often are found unaware about such issues. Ignorance can not be allowed to be a blessing in disguise for them. I have personally received messages from teachers whom I sensitized & trained at DIETs (SCERT) on Inclusive education and accessible school infrastructure, that their Principals / Viceprincipals /Headmistresses were not willing to take in disabled students and sending their parents to find admissions in special schools nearby. There is an urgent need to tackle such a trend among the senior staff at schools.
Appointment of Special Educators in all MCD Schools/ Delhi Cantonment Schools & Delhi Administration Schools will boost the confidence of the School Managers and staff to readily take in more students rather than discouraging them to go away.
Also the process of extending support to such students need to be made more smoother. Currently, as per my information, the concerned class teacher has to line up in the office of the District Education Officer to get the concessions and other facilities for the child with disability in his class while leaving the class of 50-60 unattended students. This is surely discouraging from all angles. May be the Secretary-Education, Govt. of Delhi needs to look at this seriously.
regards
Subhash Chandra Vashishth
Advocate-Disability Rights
09811125521
Here is the shock that nerved the High Court of Delhi :
MCD schools must have teachers for disabled students: HC
HT Correspondent, Hindustan TimesEmail AuthorNew Delhi, May 28, 2009
For 12-year-old Avinash, a visually impaired student of an MCD school in Jahangirpuri, it was smooth sailing from classes I to IV. But since two years, he has been stuck in Class V, as his promotion now is based on performance.
“What could he do? All four years he just came to school and went back and could do nothing,” says lawyer Ashok Aggarwal.
He is pleading in the High Court for a direction to government and MCD schools to appoint special teachers for differently-abled students. “There was no teacher in the school who knew the Braille technique,” Aggarwal says.
As per the MCD’s own admission there are 10,600 such students in schools across Delhi.
A shocked Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered the MCD and Delhi Government to take immediate steps to appoint adequate number of such teachers.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by Social Jurist, an NGO that had contended that 1,000 schools run by the Delhi government and 1,800 MCD schools do not have trained teachers for disabled students.
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