Inclusive Education

Concept of Inclusive education

What is Inclusive education – Inclusive education plays an important role in the international drive for education for all (EFA). Sustainable Development Goals 4 and article 24 of the UNCRPD

Inclusive education means children with disabilities being taught in the same classroom alongside non-disabled children. Teaching methods, resources and the school environment are designed so that all children can learn together. In an inclusive school, children with disabilities do not study in separate classes; instead teaching methods, textbooks, materials, and the school environment are designed so that girls and boys with a range of abilities and disabilities — including physical, sensory, intellectual and mobility impairments.

Project need:

We have carried out baseline survey it clearly revels that in these bordering districts prevalence of disability is high and continues due to the harmful high ‘fluoride’ mineral content in the ground water since decades. This results in fragile bone marrow development in still born children and many forms of physical and locomotor disability in children and adults. Resulting in schools drop outs and limited social and economic activities in adults.

What Samarthanam is done in IE?

It is first innovative project in the community and with mainstream schools in chilamatur mandal in Andhra Pradesh and Bagepalli areas of Karnataka.

Major Achievement 1: Education:

200 Children with disabilities have been enrolled and retained in mainstream schools.
70 teachers trained from 35 schools to manage CWDs in border areas of AP and Karnataka
We worked with 35 schools and their respective authorities to improve quality of education and participation to CWDs in Karnataka and AP.
7 TLM kits provided to schools. Which are need based, thus resulting in better mobility and school participation.

Major Achievement 2: Therapy:

300 plus adults in the community have been identified in 5 locations, project works with 2 PHCs, one District hospital and 10 panchayat zones to provide ‘therapy’ and health related assistance.
153 assistive devices provided to CWDs and adults
9 surgical interventions provided to Child with disability to prevent preventable disabilities, which has enabled them attend school.

Major Achievement 3: Establishing the 1st operational rural center of Samarthanam, in a 5 acre campus, which includes a 4000 sq feet building from 100% recycled construction materials. Through this center we reach out to 4 districts, having a disabled population of 10000 children and adults.

The main strategies applied in our IE work are as follows:

Sensitization and capacity building of Govt school teachers.
Developed appropriate and adequate material on IE in order to help them use as reference material \
Focused attention and specific educational interventions to deal with the issues of people with profound and severe disabilities with a view to bring them at par with other category of disabilities in the mainstream education system.
Intensive capacity building program for parents \ Care givers.

Challenges overcome:

Teacher student ratio is big challenge , Negative attitude of the teachers, peers in school and parents
Apart from the teaching, the teachers have to perform other roles in schools which is difficult to pay attention to CWDs.
Inaccessibility of the schools, lack of TLMs , Poor quality education
Lack of expert teachers to manage divers disabilities in single class room

Lessons learned from the IE project –

It is possible to teach children with disabilities with the effective training of existing mainstream school teachers. Govt, schools were not physically accessible which prevents CWDs attending schools.
Lack of assistive device prevents CWDs attending schools
Transportation support to CWDs is crucial otherwise many girls with disabilities were out of schools
IERC should be one in each block
Future projects we must recruit special educators rather than development workers/officer.
The focus of the project was on access and rights and as such the academic performance of the CWDs got lesser importance.
There were no screening tools in the IE training module to identify hidden disability.

Inclusive education program at bordering villages of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh

Inclusive Education is a community based approach which involves working with varies stakeholders such as child, parent, adults in the community. Involving government schools and education departments, Health and other departments in order to ensure the objectives is achieved in 5 years. This is the 4th year of the project cycle:

Chilamatur madal A.P. (out of 26 mandals in Sathya sai district)
Covering 5 high schools 16 primary schools, 1 College and others in the community
Bagepalli taluka in Chikkaballapur district (total 6 taluka)
Covering 5 schools and 3 PU collage and others in the community