CHENNAI: Two years after being forced by his teachers to drop out of school as “he was not smart enough”, Dev Nath* passed class 10 state board exams, and even scored 84 marks in Science. “They told me that I couldn’t pass...that I was bad at studies,” he said.
Dev is a student with a learning disability, who pursued his schooling in a government school in the city. His teachers and school principal convinced him that he cannot clear public exams like other students in his class. After clearing class 10 exams, he now pursues higher secondary schooling at Vidya Sagar, a centre for special education, and wants to work in the IT sector after.
He is one among scores of students with disabilities, who have been let down by the State’s school education system. Although 1.36 lakh students with disabilities were enrolled in government and aided schools in 2016-17, only around a tenth of them received either a kit box, escort, or transport or more than one of them, according to the policy note of School Education Department 2017-18. Only 293 students were given braille study material although 18 per cent of all persons with disabilities are identified to have visual impairment according to 2011 census.
The census also reveals that literacy rate among persons with disabilities is about 60 per cent, when the State has a rate of 80 per cent. However, literacy rate may not reflect reality in schools, as students with disabilities are forced to drop out, mostly around class 8, as they are promoted through classes without actual integration into main-stream education until then, pointed Sujatha Sriram, a special educator.
“Children, with only mild disabilities survive education in main-stream government schools after that. Other students are asked to either drop-out, change discipline of study or learn from home,” she said, adding that sometimes, parents are even made to wait the whole day to assist their wards. This is a problem, if the child is from an economically backward family, as an earning member of the family is forced to stay back to assist the child.
When Express visited government and government-aided schools in the city, only select blocks in many schools, even had basic inclusive Infrastructure like ramps. Staff from these schools confirmed that most of these ramps were laid, when their schools were polling booths. Such schools were accessible, only from the gate to the rooms that were used as polling booths. This left toilets in many schools inaccessible. “I’ve had to hold my bladder till the end of the day until my mother came. Even though the toilet was in the ground floor, it was too small and difficult to access by myself on my wheelchair. I can’t always ask for help,” said Ram Kumar*, another government school student with physical disability.
Rajiv Rajan, the executive director Ektha foundation, who did a study of polling stations during 2016 elections, said that the ramps built in schools were too steep to access independently. “Narrow corridors, and sandy approach to the ramps create major barriers for access,” he said, emphasising that very few schools had proper access to toilets.
Vasantham Federation, an NGO, found through a sampled survey in Thiruvallur district, found that only 25 per cent of government schools at least had ramps. A total of 75 sample schools were surveyed. “Ramps and building western toilets were the only infrastructural change made even in the 25 per cent of schools. Children with intellectual disabilities were being persuaded to discontinue after class 5. Barely any teacher knew sign language or braille,” said A Lingston, from the federation.
With very little inclusive measures in place, only students who can verbally communicate well and have average cognitive development can complete their education in mainstream government schools, said Kalpana Rao, the principal of Vidya Sagar. When students can’t express themselves properly, or need extra attention, or have multiple disabilities, schools even cite bullying as an excuse to wash their hands off the responsibility, she claimed.
“When Dev joined us, he was psychologically broken down and his self esteem was really poor. It took us three months to make him feel normal again,” said Kalpana adding that teachers from the school, took Dev to every play, talk show, concert and performance in the city in those three months, in order to expose him to the various career options he had. “We didn’t need grand investments to re-integrate him into education. We just had to believe in him and had to invest a little extra time in him than usual,” she said, adding that there at least 20 students like him who joined Vidya Sagar after dropping out of government schools.
Kalpana suggested that plausible inclusion strategy should be implemented strongly by the government. “By the end of it, he voluntarily said that he wanted continue his education,” she said.
Every school should be accessible to students with disabilities by 2019, according to the orders of the Supreme Court, said Pradeep Yadav, the principal secretary to the School Education Department. However, he did not specify the steps the state would take to implement this.