CHENNAI: Sixteen-year-old Maathur* is months into his 11th year of schooling. Like every other student caught in this pandemic, his new academic year too has been defined by online classes and the troubles that come with it. For starters, he has to share screentime with his college-going sister, scheduling his schoolwork in the evening hours when the elder sibling does not have live classes. He has to make do with the limited data plan that his family can afford.
While this may be true for many children from certain economic sections, Maathur has an additional set of challenges that comes with being hearing impaired. Maathur’s study materials come in the form of videos and written assignments. That the videos are pre-recorded instead of being live sessions offer some much-needed respite. Yet, it isn’t without its own problems.
“He’s in the Accounts group and all the subjects are new. There’s a lot of difference between the teacher explaining the concepts to them in class and sending disjointed recordings of it. So, he’s finding it very difficult to understand and cope. His brother and sister are not able to help him either, because they don’t know enough of the subject to teach him in Tamil (medium of instruction),” explains his mother Rani*. Maathur also has trouble with vision; seeing small print is trouble.
This makes the written work sent online a bit more difficult as well, she adds. For eight-year-old Sanjay*, with multiple disabilities and sensory needs, digital education is the last straw in a routine that’s gone completely haywire. Reduced access to the outside world, loss of perks that came with going to school every day, and the abrupt halt to therapy sessions, have not made the transition any easier. Without these releases, the boy has little patience to sit down for online classes. For most of the rest of the day, he’s a ball of hyperactivity, leaving his mother Shanthi* to be constantly on his tail.
Survey says it all
It’s these problems and several others that have come to light in the recent surveys by Swabhiman, a community-based disability rights organisation, and National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), a disability legislation unit of eastern India.
While only 10 per cent of the 3,627 participants (students, teachers, parents and adults with disabilities) were outside Odisha, where Swabhiman is based, the surveys offer a picture of how online education can present a lot more challenges for children with disabilities and their educators.
Access to smartphones or computers and Internet tops the list of concerns. While this may be true for any child, students with disabilities also have to contend with the lack of alternate reading materials. This was true even before the start of digital education, says Raghuraman Karna, founder of Karna Vidya Foundation, an organisation that works for the empowerment of persons with visual impairment.
“Schools will have Braille books and audio materials. Yet, there was a scarcity of these resources too. It’s not like books were turned into audio format and preserved in a book bank. Teachers, of their own volition, might have some at hand or may acquire it from past pupils. It was a floating arrangement. This was manageable because the teacher was present, physically, to guide the students and aid them,” he explains, adding that we are far from achieving that with online classes.
The social distancing norms that have been made mandatory in a virus-riddled world is yet another thing that stands between children with disabilities and their access to education. Swabhiman’s survey reports that 79 per cent of the teachers expressed concern in being able to teach those with learning disorders, autism and LV (lower vision) without touching.
“They talk about social distancing; as far as the visually impaired are concerned, it is irrelevant. We need to hold their hand, guide them, etc. So, these guidelines become a stumbling block. No volunteers are coming forward to extend their services because of this,” says C Govindakrishnan, founder of Nethrodaya, a self-help organisation for the visually impaired. It also runs a free residential higher secondary school and a free BEd college for the disabled.
Need for support systems
In the absence of these support systems (scribes, readers, escorts and attendants), the children are entirely dependent on their parents for their everyday schoolwork. Murugesan, principal of MITHRA, a school for children with learning disabilities, says, “Children need the support of their parents to handle the phone and laptop. Parents have to teach them the lessons (put up on YouTube for their convenience), and the students will have to take notes and write it down to learn from it.” Speaking of students with visual impairment, Raghuraman points out that they need someone’s assistance to even access the material sent through WhatsApp. While this can be difficult enough in the context of digital education, it also limits the amount of reprieve they have from such stresses, he suggests.
This heavy reliance on parents, in fact, is one of the recommendations put forth by Swabhiman’s survey. It suggests that parents need training in smartphones, apps and technology, and some simple guidelines for revising and guiding lessons of their children. On one hand, parents (or in most cases, one parent), caught between household chores, a daily job and other children, find little time away from this consuming routine. Shanthi says she can’t sit down to teach her younger kid — a six-year-old girl — till she puts Sanjay to bed.
Through the day, Sanjay needs much of her attention; even a ten-minute phone call on the balcony does not go by without Sanjay’s intervention. Rani sits down with Maathur after a long day of work, to try and assist in any way she can. This doesn’t free her from her responsibilities with her other two children or the household. On the other hand, parents should have access to alternative support systems, offers Sudha Ramamoorthy, special educator.
“This reliance on parents is something I’m sceptical about. I know that may be the only option but whether I am a literate parent or illiterate parent whose child is the first-generation learner, I should still have support mechanisms that I can use if I am a daily wage labourer or employed. I can’t be sitting at home and working with my child. The recommendations also included parents learning sign language (among others). I don’t know how feasible it is. Teachers should be trained in sign language; that should be the norm, COVID or not,” she reasons.
Problems and pitfalls
There’s much that’s left to be desired in terms of equipping schools and teachers to offer the best for students with disabilities, it seems. Govindakrishnan, in his capacity as member of the State Advisory Board, Government of Tamil Nadu, points out the disparity that starts right at the teacher training level. “Special schools are governed by the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI). It stipulates that teachers here be qualified in Special BEd in the specified disability.
On the other hand, inclusive schools that are governed by MHRD’s (Ministry of Human Resource and Development) Samagra Shiksha has teachers qualified in general BEd. Yet, these teachers are permitted to train special students,” he explains. The alternative he suggests is an Inclusive BEd course in the place of a general or special course. If all teachers/educators are allowed to take up this course, they will be able to teach anywhere, he adds.
There is great need to bridge the gap between government bureaucracy and those dependent on it, offers Christina Esther Rani, principal of MCJ Special School for the Hearing Impaired. “The government orders we get are different from what’s announced on the news. For example, they announced that the portions have been reduced for this year. My daughters study in a CBSE school. Their teachers have clearly explained what portions have been exempted. For us, in State Board syllabus, they are yet to give us any information about what portions have made the cut. So, students will likely end up studying the parts that have been exempted too. It’s been this difficult since the syllabus revision before 2019-20. The government only considers the position of ‘normal’ students and we have to adopt the same. They do not see disabled children as a separate concern,” she laments.
The way ahead
The change has to begin with real data on children with disabilities and the resources available to them, suggests Raghuraman. “Unfortunately, there is no data for any of this in the government. There are 21 types of disabilities recognised by the government. We have to cater to all their needs. If you were to provide online education for these students, you should have started with a team of experts who can provide a standard operating procedure that covers the basics,” he explains, offering this as merely a stop-gap arrangement that would have to be strengthened over time to create a robust digital education system for children with disabilities.
But, the road to that goal isn’t as simple as it seems, he adds. “None of this was considered (post-COVID). You don’t have the data, you haven’t made use of the people (NGOs, self-help organisations, etc.) who do; what’s more, the first orders from the government do not even mention children with disabilities. We have to initiate talks to get a separate order for these students; when we do, it is portrayed as an achievement for the community. People don’t consider them as just the citizen of the land; they are always treated as an exhibit,” he points out. Well, they say that opportunities come in the guise of adversities and perhaps the pandemic is a time for the government, schools and governing bodies of education to wake up and create the right tools to change the narrative.