This story is from December 4, 2016

State schools lack basic amenities for disabled pupils

The state is framing policies to make mainstream education inclusive for differently-abled children but fails to ensure basic amenities for such students in many schools.
State schools lack basic amenities for disabled pupils
Representative image.
RANCHI: The state is framing policies to make mainstream education inclusive for differently-abled children but fails to ensure basic amenities for such students in many schools.
State disability commissioner Satish Chandra said, "There is a need to provide basic facilities for differently-abled children in the schools to ensure fewer dropouts among such students."
Chandra informed that the number of specially-trained teachers for the differently-abled childrenis also very less as compared to the provisions of the Right to Education Act.
The act says that while the average student-teacher ratio for regular students should be 30:1, this ratio should be 10:1 in case of differently-abled children. However, only 800 special teachers have been recruited under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan for over 1.5 lakh differently-abled children studying in 40,000 schools across the state making the students-teacher ratio approximately 188:1.
Chandra said, "To meet the provisions of RTE, we need to recruit at least 15,000 specially-trained teachers for the 1.5 lakh differently-abled students."
Recently, CBSE issued directions to all affiliated schools that all schools should have atleast one specially-trained teacher. The commissioner is all set to write to the state government for the recruitment of specially-trained teachers on the lines of CBSE guidelines.
According to a survey by the District Information System for Education (DISE) in 2015-16, only 73.47% state schools had ramps.
Chandra said that the commission as well as the building construction department has issued directions that all the new school buildings being constructed must have a ramp. "Ramps are also being constructed in the old schools which do not have them," he said.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA