South India Regional Conference on Inclusive Education The South India Regional Conference on Inclusive Education organised by Retina India on Saturday November 26, 2011 at The Presidency College, Chennai, discussed the issues and concerns in implementing inclusive education, particularly in the context of children afflicted with retinal disorders or any retina related conditions. Experts who participated in the conference spoke on the concept of inclusivity and how it is enshrined in the laws and conventions.
The morning sessions, viz, explaining Inclusion as a concept, Low Vision aids and parents perspective, provided teachers the idea of inclusion. Ms Rajul Padmanabhan, Director Vidyasagar and Ms Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Founder The Banyan, spoke respectively on how inclusion has impacted the planning of our educational system and social attitude towards persons with disability. Ms Deepti Bhatya, Deputy Director of Vidyasagar also spoke on how inclusion is a win win situation for children and society at large. The session on low vision aids and accessibility described the various devices used in a classroom context which would help children access study material and learn on their own. Dr Krishna Kumar and his colleague Ms Sarika, who spoke on the session explained about various low vision aids through videos and how they can be accommodated in schools. Parents session, moderated by Prof Kalyanaraman, saw an emotional recollection of a parent’s struggle in finding a school for her son, who has now educated and become a lawyer. In the afternoon session, a string of role models, Mr Vijayakumar a Lawyer, Mr. Sriram a Research Scholar with IITM, Ms Abinaya a RJ, Mr. Sriram a Lecturer with Presidency College Chennai, who have come through the inclusive education system, explained to teachers how their own schools have managed them and what they could learn from inclusive environment. The overwhelming message was that an inclusive education environment is conducive for overall growth of children with visual challenge. During the final session, which was an open forum and moderated by Mr. L Subramani, teachers spoke on the challenges in implementing inclusive education and the wish that conferences such as SIRCIE to be conducted in their own cities. Retina India, while explaining the reasons for focusing on inclusive education, also agreed to work with the teachers who attended the conference from Chennai, Ongole, Tiruchi, Coimbatore etc to help them spread the message of inclusion amongst their fellow teachers and also speak about it in their schools. This is the first step in creating a platform for inclusive education in which Retina India would work with schools and take efforts to create model schools in different regions. -- Vamshi. G PH No. : 0877-2243861 Mob : 9949349497 E-mail ID: [email protected] Skype ID : gvamshi81 www.retinaindia.org >From darkness unto light Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[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.in
