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Report shows more visually-impaired children now attending schools
NCERT’s school education survey reveals that schools have more enrolments of disabled children. At the same time only 21.11% schools are equipped for disabled children and less than 2% teachers are trained to handle them.
NCERT's eighth all-India school education survey has come up with encouraging statistics that shows that India is heading towards more inclusive education. An amazing 17.36% rise was recorded in the enrolment of visually challenged children in schools between 2002 and 2009.
At 40,635 students, Maharashtra tops the country with the most number of visually challenged students in schools, followed by the country's most literate state Kerala with 38,230 students.
The survey also revealed that visually impaired accounted for 29.16% of the differently abled students in the country. In absolute figures there were 2.5 lakh visually challenged students among 8.35 lakh differently-abled.
A complete break-up of disabilities showed that after the visually impaired the second largest group was students with orthopaedic (locomotor) disability at 25%, followed by intellectual impairment gripping 22.35% school students. Around 14% students were hearing impaired, 4.40% had multiple impairment and 4.77% other disabilities.
From 2002 to 2009, the number of visually challenged children going to school increased by 36,031. Whereas, hearing, orthopaedic and intellectual impairments came down by 3.98%, 68.05% and 15.59%.
So is that suddenly India is suffering from an ocular epidemic? The reasons for a significant increase in visually challenged students need further investigation, Y Sreekanth, who heads NCERT's educational survey division, said.
"Increased health check-ups in schools could be one of the reasons for high number of students with visual impairment,'' he added. Similarly, the drastic reduction in orthopaedic impairment could be attributed to the highly efficient pulse polio programme implemented in India.
The survey also covered the state of schooling facilities for children with disabilities. Here the statistics fall absolutely short of expectations. Out of a total 12,99,902 schools in the country, only 21.11% or 2,74,445 adhere to inclusive education for disabled children
The number of teachers, who had received training of at least 2 weeks in inclusive education, was equally dismal. Only 1.32% teachers were equipped to handle special children, which is 80,942 out of 58,76,273 teachers.
Image used for representational purpose only