Hi Subramani/Janardhan/Jayant, Thanks for your support. The concerned person would get in touch with you by email/phone with her queries.
regards & best wishes, Pranay Gadodia | Programme Manager Project Eyeway - A knowledge resource for living a fuller life with blindness. C/o Score Foundation, Y-70, Lower Ground floor, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110 016. INDIA. Website: www.eyeway.org Helpdesk:+91-11-460 70 380 (Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm) Office Phone: +91 - 11 - 2685 2559/ 2685 2581 Email: [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Subramani L" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:36 PM Subject: Re: [AI] Research/survey in visual disability For the benefit of all: For many challenged children, inclusion remains a half-fulfilled dream L Subramani As her little boy child started to grow, Kavitha Krishnamoorthy had to confront a question -which would be the right school for hhim? While it may be normal for parents to wrestle with this question, Kavitha had a reason to ponder over it longer and deeper than many others. For Ananth, her son, has autism and, as Kavitha feared, schools were less than welcoming when they learnt about his condition. A few who did want to admit him had virtually no idea of his requirement. After nearly wondering if it would be possible at all for Ananth to go to school, Kavitha finally managed to put him in a Montessori institution run by someone with experience in special education. Now seven, Ananth has been lucky enough to go to a school that is willing to accommodate him and know how to do that, but parents who have children like him in the cities don't find private schools so forthcoming. Indeed, this continues to happen in a state where the government system has emerged as a shining model for inclusive education. According to Ruma Banerjee, Managing Trustee of Seva In Action, Karnataka has set high standards in implementing inclusion amongst its schools by announcing the first ever inclusive education policy in the country. "Karnataka has a long history of mainstreaming children with disabilities since the 1980s," Ms Banerjee, whose organisation has worked intensively for the past decade and a half in helping the state government adopt inclusive education, says. "And since a number of projects of GOI and UN agencies have been pilot tested here, there have been opportunities for major learning in this area." Rights-based approach Traditionally, integrated education has been thought as the ideal approach to bring persons with disability into the mainstream system. It was thought as a gradual process from a special environment to the mainstream one, equipping the child to sustain itself in the larger school dominated by its able-bodied peers. Inclusive education, on the other hand, has been thought as a right-based, participatory approach in which the system has been altered to accommodate all children without exception. Among other things, it calls for accessible buildings, inclusive teaching practices and a system that recognises the special child's right to education. Curriculum adaptation In Karnataka, Bijapur -a district with 80 per cent of its citizens living in rural areas- has by far the best model of inclusion in terms of curriculum adaptation. Using the Inclusive Education Resource Teachers (IERTs) trained under the Sarva Shiksha Abiyan (SSA) programme, the district education department has tried several innovative methods for accomplishing the competencies prescribed for the class by the curriculum. The result was TUDITA (pulse), a handbook for Standard 5 Kannada and Science subjects which can be useful to all children. "The handbook is based on the Samarthyas (competencies) prescribed for the subject," says Rajendra Prasad, DDPI (District Director for Primary Instruction) for Bijapur. "For instance, children in stad 5 (in science) are taught the functions of various mechanical devices such as pulleys. To enable CWSN (Children With Special Needs) achieve the competencies prescribed under the curriculum, we enable them to physically explore the functioning of the devices (as a task )." A visually challenged child, for instance, has the chance to touch and feel the device while even other children can operate them and understand how it functions. "The idea of developing this is to stop CWSN from dropping out as they progress to higher classes," Rajendra Prasad says. "We are keen that children should not suffer on account of an inaccessible education system and have taken efforts to ensure we can make the system flexible enough to accommodate all children>" As a ground for several pilot projects since the 1980s, Karnataka has been able to adopt and implement inclusive education practices before other states. With the advent of SSA and having experienced NGOs like Seva In Action have made it possible for the state government to have the prescribed three-resource teachers-per-block. The state also have extensive training programmes for government teachers in IE practices. Discrimination in private schools However, Ms Banerjee agrees that implementation of inclusive education in the government system has only partly solved the problem. "Persuading private schools -which is extremely necessary for inclusion to happen in urban areas- has proved to be a big challenge for us," she says. "Besides sensitising a few, we could not largely implement the concept in the private schools. It is unfortunate that most of them are not receptive to the idea." Kavitha and a few other parents of CWSN run a voluntary group called Kilikili, which has been working to persuade the system at large to accommodate inclusion. "Private schools either completely turn down special children, particularly if they have conditions like autism," she says. "They fear that such children may have behavioural issues and therefore feel they cannot be accommodated into the school. There are also a group of institutions who are interested to admit CWSN, but do not know how best to make them part of the classroom activities. Some schools, who claim to be inclusive, have special classrooms for CWSNs and attempt inclusion only in certain extra-curricular activities such as staging concerts or dramas." The problem, Kavitha says, is lack of a comprehensive training system for those teaching in private schools or managing them. Though this could affect challenged children at large, Kavitha feels children with behavioural challenges suffer exclusion more than the others. Lobbying for incorporating inclusion in the recently proposed Right To Education (RTE) bill by the union HRD ministry, Kavitha believes that the system would gradually change to understand the need for inclusion. BOX: * Karnataka has 606 Inclusive Education Resource Teachers -three in 202 blocks. * About 90 per cent government teachers in the primary school level have been trained in inclusive education. * * Seva In Action, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, has been embarking on a study to assess implementation of inclusive education by various states in the country -which may provide a comprehensive understanding of its adoption in the country. * Inclusive education has been a part of the United Nation Convention on Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD, Article 23), signed and ratified by India. * the 86th constitutional amendment has made elementary education a legal right. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Janardhana Naidu Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AI] Research/survey in visual disability Hello Subramani Sir, Will you please attach me your article on "Inclusive education" to strengthen my research work? Thanks in anticipation, G. Janardhananaidu E mail: [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Subramani L" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 5:33 PM Subject: Re: [AI] Research/survey in visual disability >I just wrote an article about inclusive education. I don't know if I > will be able to provide exactly what he/she is asking for, but I shall > try. > > Subramani > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eyeway > Helpdesk > Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:03 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [AI] Research/survey in visual disability > > Dear friends, > One of our helpdesk callers wants to get in touch with people who have > done some research/survey in visual disability in India. She wants some > info to write an article and would be happy to give acknowledgement in > her write-up. > Members/non-members who might have done it as part of their > project/M.Phil/Ph.D or for writing article/book to my mind would be > helpful. > > Anybody with relevant info and ideas as well, pls get in touch with us > on the below co-ordinates. > > thanks and regards, > > Pranay Gadodia | Programme Manager > Project Eyeway - A knowledge resource for living a fuller life with > blindness. > C/o Score Foundation, Y-70, Lower Ground floor, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - > 110 016. INDIA. > > Website: www.eyeway.org > Helpdesk:+91-11-460 70 380 (Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm) > Office Phone: +91 - 11 - 2685 2559/ 2685 2581 > Email: [email protected] > > > To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, > please visit the list home page at > > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i > n > > Email secured by TPML Raksha Checkpoint > > > > To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, > please visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i n To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i n Email secured by TPML Raksha Checkpoint To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
