THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:A two-day conference for parents, resource teachers and other professionals associated with persons who are intellectually challenged from across the state began here on Tuesday. Titled ‘Vision 2020’, it aims at preparing the participants toward ensuring total mainstreaming of intellectually challenged by the year 2020.
The conference assumes even more importance as the proposal for conferring aided status to special schools for intellectually challenged is about to come up before the cabinet on Wednesday.
K Muraleedharan MLA, inaugurating the conference, said that various government departments, be it the Social Justice Department, Education Department or the Health Department should work together to formulate policies for people who are intellectually challenged. He said that while a child who is intellectually challenged has educational opportunities at school-level, the avenues available wane in higher classes.
It is organised by C H Mohammed Koya Memorial State Institute for the Mentally Challenged (SIMC), Pangappara, in association with Inter-university Centre for Disability Studies (IUCDS), MG University.
SIMC Principal M K Jayaraj said that the conference is an academic exercise which initiates a process of scientifically consolidating and solving, or at least addressing, every issue faced by people with intellectual disabilities. He said that the new momentum, palpable in the field of intellectual disabilities, is because of the government approving 110 of 168 proposals submitted in the M K Jayaraj Commission report.
P Jayachandran, director, Vijay Human Services, said in his keynote address that the government should focus on policies of preventing intellectual challenges. He said that it was possible to diagnose disabilities in the womb and in India, high-end laboratories can diagnose around 50 disabilities in the labour room. Early intervention will help arrest progress of the disability, he said.
Such a policy will not only save the parents from expending their mental energy, time and money on the issue, but will help the government manage the issues of intellectually challenged better, he said.
N Ahamed Pillai, State Disability Commissioner, said that there were numerous things that an individual could do to prevent the occurrence of people with intellectual disability. Simple steps of caution like providing care before and after pregnancy and avoiding marriage of blood relatives can help avoid it to a great extent, he said.
Kerala State Science and Technology Museum Director Arul Jerald Prakash, Special School Association president Fr Roy Vadakkel, IUCDS lecturer T V Suneesh and P B George, a member of Parivar, an organisation of parents of people who are intellectually challenged, spoke on the occasion.
