The Hindu : New Delhi News : Dismal education conditions for disabled students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Dismal education conditions for disabled students

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT 14. Reiterating their determination for a year-long campaign to "mainstream disabled students in education'', the National Centre For Promotion Of Employment For Disabled People today released a study on "Education scenario vis-a-vis students with disabilities''.

According to the study, of the 119 universities that responded, the total number of disabled students was only 1,635. Of these universities, 24 clearly stated that they did not follow the mandatory 3 per cent reservation for disabled students.

"This report clearly shows the abject failure of the Indian education system. The country made a big mistake for going in for what is coming to be called "special education''. By setting up these special education institutes like the Blind Schools, Deaf Schools and Spastics Societies, all that they managed to do was to create isolated islands. Neither was a `normal' child exposed to disabled ones nor vice-versa. It just creates a false protection for some years,'' said executive director, NCPEDP, Javed Abidi while releasing the report today.

Educational institutions also appear to be ill-equipped to support differently-abled students, as per the report. In all the 119 respondent Universities, only 1,203 students with orthopaedic impairments were enrolled. And shockingly, only 18 Universities reported that they provided appropriate desks and chairs for students with disabilities, only 11 provided wheelchairs and only nine of them provided access to tricycles.

While the number of visually impaired students added up to only 311 students, according to the report, only 16 universities had special computer software and only 10 universities provided access to books in Braille. As per the report, it appears that the worse affected category is the hearing impaired as only 10 of the universities provide sign language interpreters.

Pointing out one of the lacunae in the system, Mr. Abidi said, "I don't understand why education for the disabled falls under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. If there is a Department for Education under the Human Resource Development Ministry, then why does this fall into a separate Ministry. After all, the educationists are all associated with the Department of Education''.

Challenging the slogan of "Education For All'', he added, "This is not `Education For All' when we forget such a large part of our population''. As part of their campaign, NCPEDP is also planning a seminar to discuss the various issues.

The study has also tried to incorporate status of education of differently-abled students in mainstream schools.

In the 89 respondent schools, it was revealed that only 382 students with disabilities were enrolled.

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