Children with Special Needs (CwSN) in Telangana continue to get a raw deal in terms of school education, notwithstanding the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
As per an amendment to the Act, the Teacher-Pupil Ratio for CwSN should be 1:5 at the primary level, and 1:8 at the secondary level. However, in Telangana, each teacher is saddled with 126 children with special needs on an average at the primary level.
At the secondary level, no special teachers are appointed at all.
Telangana has close to 69,000 children between classes I and VIII, with disabilities and cognitive impairments, as per the data collated during 2014-15. At the secondary level, 22,035 CwSN are recognised.
Even where special educators are employed, they are employed only on contract basis.
Telangana has 548 contract teachers for imparting home-based education for CwSN, as per the information provided by the Inclusive Education Resource Teachers’ Association of Telangana State.
Kalpagiri Sreenu, General Secretary of the Association, says all the contract teachers have been working under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, while the State government evades its responsibility of recruiting special educators.
A Government Order (G.O.) of 2012 sanctioned 1,476 school assistant (Special Teacher) posts in united AP, under the centrally sponsored scheme for ‘Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage’ (IEDSS), with the stipulation that Central funds would be released on actual utilisation basis.
However, no teacher has been recruited under the scheme so far, while a committee was duly constituted to finalise the modalities. With the bifurcation of the State, Telangana got 616 posts for filling, for which notifications are yet to be released.
Strangely, the GO identified only Visual Impairments and Hearing Impairments for the posts of special educators, while the definition of CwSN also includes speech-impaired, multiple-disabilities, orthopaedically impaired, children suffering from cerebral palsy or learning disabilities, and autistic children.
“We demand that all categories of teacher posts be filled, and that the existing teachers working on contract basis be considered first for filling up the posts under IEDSS.Andhra Pradesh has already begun the process of regularisation, so the Telangana government should follow suit,” Mr. Sreenu demands.
In Telangana’s schools, each teacher is saddled with 126 children with special needs on an average at the primary level. At the secondary level, no special teachers are appointed at all
