Differently Abled Children to receive support from the schools from now onwards

The State Government of West Bengal has taken an emphatic step towards ensuring that Differently Abled Children are given as much facilities as is deemed necessary for them. It is thereby declared that a set of guidelines is to be followed by each and every school even if the school has a single differently abled student, according to the West Bengal Council of Secondary Examination’s Vice Secretary, Shubhashis Karn. The following are the few highlighted points of the guidelines:

• Ramps have to be established for students who have walking or standing related disability. The Head teacher / Principal should try to accommodate classes in the ground floor for such students.
• Students with impaired vision or any eye related disorder must be allowed to sit in the first bench and beside the window. Such students will have to be provided with books written in Braille or books with extra large font.
• Toilets must be built keeping in mind the ease of access by the physically/mentally challenged students.
• For students with hearing impairment should be provided the choice of selecting their first language along with the choice for selecting 2^nd and 3^rd If a student opts for 2^nd Language in place of 1^st Language, then the school has to ensure that either a general teacher or a special educator must be appointed to provide tutorial.
• Students will have to be provided with more freedom to select languages from class V onwards. If a student opts for 2^nd Language as well then provisions are necessary to provide special tutorials at least once a week.
• In the sphere of Examination and marking scheme, there has been changes made as well. A single question will come from grammar & reading sections of the chosen 2^nd Language, respectively. The number of questions will gradually increase each year till Madhyamik. In the subjective questions part, short answer type questions are mainly to be given, capped at 50 words at max.
• For differently abled children, for subjects such as Science and Geography, questions related to Geometry and Maps should be made optional.
• Students will be provided extra time to write their papers according to the guideline:

1. 45 minutes grace time for 3 hour paper
2. 30 minutes grace time for 2 hour paper
3. 15 minutes grace time for 1 hour paper

• Each disabled student will be provided with a junior mentor during their exam time who will assist them and will be selected by the school Head Teacher.

It is a matter of great concern that even after the law passed by the Rehabilition Council of India in 1992, the state virtually has no specially trained teachers for dealing with the disabled children till class XII level in the schools, where the total number of differently abled students at present hovers around the 2,03,000 mark. The official number of contractual special educators count on the other hand, barely reaches the 1344 mark. In fact nearly 27000 students are there alone in the class IX-XII level. The make-shift HS teachers are working as special educators in the schools. Thus, the biggest and most obvious question that is prevalent is, with no teachers for the specially abled students present in the schools, how much of an impact will this guidelines have and to what extent will they be implemented.

Source:  http://goo.gl/LEbzvv