Being Special is not always good: Peeping into the world of CWSN

CWSN means Children With Special Needs

 

 Being  a teacher, we have been taught or we can say that we have been trained to think that all students should hold an equal place in the heart of teacher. No child should be left behind. No one should come into the blind spot of the teacher. But still, there are many who are not so lucky to get that special place in the heart of the teachers and they ultimately come into their blind spot. And, all this happens because that child is "Special". S/he is a child who has special needs. 
World Report on CWSN on disability states that 34% CWSN still do not have access to school. The lack of trained teachers and personals in schools have lead to chaos in the classrooms and negligence of that child by the teachers as the latter is not at all equipped to handle the needs of that child along with the other "normal" children. on other hand, there are always chances of that child being bullied or abused by the fellow students.

The Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 provides for access to free education in an appropriate environment for children with disabilities till they attain the age of 18 years. The educational needs of disabled children are to be covered through a range of interventions. 

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 requires The State to ensure compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of elementary education by all children of 6-14 years. As per the Act the Government has to ensure that the children belonging to disadvantaged group are not discriminated against and prevented from pursuing and completing elementary education on any grounds (CWSN Home)

SSA scheme also promotes an equity based approach that focuses on the needs of disadvantaged social groups including children with special needs.

Madhya Pradesh is the first State that has taken an initiative to use the ICT for the tracking of the assistance being provided to the CWSN to ensure personalised follow-up. 

The follow up has been done in many more states but the data shows that the efforts made by the government agencies have to accelerate at the pace of a rocket to achieve the inclusion of these children. For instance, the Special Training Centres (STC) (edudel.nic.in/ssa/7.pdf) that were opened in the premise of the government school or are operated by the NGO's; in the NCR Delhi and other states such as Gujarat, Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh (reports by CARE); do not have trained teachers to cater to the needs of these differently-able children. 

The RTE Act under the section 4, Chapter 2 states and emphasises on the inclusion of the children who were not able to get admission into the mainstream school due to any psychological, developmental, social or economical factors. They will be given special training so that they could bridge the academic gap required for inclusion in their respective induced class under the provision of age-appropriate admission under RTE 2009.

These STC are only looking for children who are Out-of-School in terms of their "normality" and "Dropped out" status not if they are special need children such as locomotive, oral, aural, partial sighted, hearing or cognitive special needs.

It is high time now for the government agencies to wake up and learn from other educational policies in countries such as US, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Netherlands and so on. However, they are not to be copied blindly but should be adapted accordingly and contextually to the factors such as teacher training, population, infrastructure and funding.
if you want to learn more about the CWSN, then you could follow these significant links:

1. http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/281_74.pdf

2. www.ncert.nic.in/gpPDF/pdf/tiicsnups101.pdf

3. www.nuepa.org/New/images/department/SSE/2017/Brochure_2017.pdf

4. https://www.unicef.org/disabilities/files/Assistive-Tech-Web.pdf

5. ssakarnataka.gov.in/pdfs/int_inclusiveedu/CWSNDraftPolicy2013.pdf