Special children can rub shoulders with other kids in regular schools

Your child may be physically or mentally challenged. But that is no excuse to keep him or her away from school. A recent central directive to the state government has made it clear that special children should not be kept away from schools, unless they are aggressive.

A team of experts from the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), which visited the state recently, has directed the state’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) officials to take up the responsibility of physically or mentally-challenged children only if they are suffering from bouts of aggression.

Currently, 14,739 children in the state, who are suffering from one or another form of disability, are taking home-based education under the SSA’s inclusive education programme. But the MHRD team has told the SSA officials that not all of these children were aggressive. So, officials should take necessary measures to ensure that non-aggressive kids among these special children are sent to regular schools.

Reacting to this, an SSA official said, “The MHRD team has directed us to give home-based education to only those disabled kids who are aggressive. We will implement the same from the next academic year.”

At present, under the SSA scheme, children with severe physical and mental disabilities are given home-based education as part of its inclusive education programme. Two volunteers from the SSA go to the disabled kids’ house twice a week, to teach them life skills and the basics. “Some parents do not agree to send such children to regular schools, though they have minimal disabilities. In such cases, we cannot pressurise parents, because if anything happens tomorrow, the officials or the school authorities will be held responsible,” said the SSA official.

However, the SSA would provide necessary support for physically-challenged children in reaching school, sources said.
According to statistics available with the SSA, there were 1,25,251 children with special needs in the state. They included children with disabilities like poor vision, cerebral palsy, mental and other forms of physical disabilities.