Sarva shiksha abhiyan Kerala IED

Inclusive education for disabled children: OVERVIEW OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN SSA

Inclusive education for disabled children: Inclusive Education

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Inclusive education for disabled children Inclusive education for disabled children in sarva shiksha abhiyan kerala

Inclusive Education For CWSN(Children With Special Needs)


Children with Special Needs
Under SSA , efforts are made to give quality education to children with special needs. Some kind of liaison with parents of such children is extremely essential. Parent Councils were formed and regular meetings held on creating awareness on various disabilities. Parents were urged to hold a positive attitude and have faith in the abilities of disabled children. The Council has provided the platform to discuss family, social, education, rehabilitation issues and various psychological barriers related to disabilities.
Parents of disabled children have been nominated in SSA districts and all the members have undergone intensive training. In addition, Parents Councils have been formed in every village constituting of parents of disabled children. The members of Parent Council are trained on dealing with specific issues pertaining to children with various disabilities.

Generating Awareness
To mobilize the parents and teachers, posters (awareness material) for Locomotor Disability, Visual Impairment (VI), Mental Retardation (MR) & Hearing Impairment (HI) are prepared and will be distributed in the schools. These posters carry messages on developing a positive attitude towards disabled children by parents, family members’ etc. This awareness material will be used during Parent Council, MTA, PTA meetings.

Training Strategy for IEDC
In cascade mode, training is imparted to project staff at district, block, cluster and village levels. Class teachers dealing with disabled child is given specific training of the concerned disability at BRC level by qualified and experienced Resource Teachers. Class teachers of disabled children are oriented on classroom management, attitudinal aspects of teachers, classmates and schoolmates, curricular and co-curricular activities, supplementary literature, use of specific aids and appliances to address the problems of concerned disability of children.

All other teachers of a school with a disabled child are trained on classroom management, attitudinal aspects of teachers, classmate and school mates and co-curricular and curricular activities.
Training Modules
Master Trainers’ Training module was developed and distributed to BRC and CRC levels. Teacher’s training module was developed and distributed in all the schools . The module guides the teachers in Classroom transaction and in changing their attitude towards the disabled children. In addition, the content of the module enables the teachers to design co-curricular activities, content-based teaching methods to suit the needs of children with various disabilities, use of literature in TLM (both standard and subject wise) and use of special aids.

OVERVIEW OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN SSA

Background

RTE mandates free and compulsory education to all children from 6-14 years of age. The
key objective of RTE- SSA is Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE). Three
important aspects of UEE are access, enrolment and retention of all children in 6-14 years
of age. This goal of UEE, has further been facilitated by the Constitutional (86th
Amendment) Act, making free and compulsory elementary education a Fundamental Right,
for all the children in the age group of 6-14 years. This Amendment has given a new thrust
to the education of Children With Special Needs (CWSN), as without their inclusion, the
objective of UEE cannot be achieved. In-fact inclusion of one of the groups, which is
extremely crucial for UEE, is perhaps that of the CWSN. Hence, education of CWSN is an
important component of SSA.

Provisions for CWSN under SSA

SSA provides upto Rs.3000/- per child for the inclusion of disabled children, as per
specific proposal, per year. District plan for children with special needs is formulated
within the Rs.3000/- per child norm, with Rs. 1000/- ear- marked exclusively for
engagement of resource teachers. The interventions under SSA for inclusive education are
identification, functional and formal assessment, appropriate educational placement,
preparation of Individualized Educational Plan, provision of aids and appliances, teacher
training, resource support, removal of architectural barriers, research, monitoring and
evaluation and a special focus on girls with special needs.

RTE- SSA’s Policy on Inclusion - Policy interventions

SSA ensures that every child with special needs, irrespective of the kind, category and
degree of disability, is provided meaningful and quality education. Hence, SSA has adopted
a zero rejection policy. This means that no child having special needs should be deprived
of the right to education and taught in an environment, which is best, suited to his/her
learning needs. These include special schools, EGS, AIE or even home-based education.
The major thrust of SSA is on inclusion or mainstreaming CWSN into the fabric of formal
elementary schooling. Experiences of programmes like DPEP and various research findings
have shown that inclusion is best determined by the individual needs of the child. Most
children with special needs can be enrolled and retained in regular schools if adequate
resource support is provided to them, whereas there are others who might have to be
provided some kind of pre-integration programmes, before they can be mainstreamed in a
classroom. There might also be still some CWSN with severe profound disabilities, who
would require an educational programme and intensive specialized support.
Every child with special needs should be placed in the neighbourhood schools, with needed
support services. Children with special needs need to be facilitated to acquire certain skills
that will enable them to access elementary education as envisaged in the Act. For instance,
they may need mobility training, training in Braille, sign language, postural training, etc.
Thus, school preparedness of children with special needs must be ensured by providing
‘special training’ as envisaged in the RTE Act. This training may be residential, non
residential or even home based, as per their specific requirements. The existing non formal
and alternate schooling (including home based education) options for children with
disabilities can be recast as ‘special training’. This means that (a) all children with special
needs who are not enrolled in schools or have dropped out, will first be enrolled in a
neighbourhood school in an age appropriate grade, (b) they will be entitled to ‘special
training’ through regular teachers or teachers specifically appointed for the purpose.
Thus, SSA has adopted a more expansive and a broad-based understanding of the
concept of inclusion, wherein a multi-option model of educating CWSN is being
implemented. The dual objective of embracing this model is to bring more CWSN under
the umbrella of SSA and to provide to CWSN appropriate need based skills, be it
vocational, functional literacy or simply activities of daily living. Further, an attempt is
being made to provide these skills in the most appropriate learning environment.