We
congratulate CBSE and HRD ministry for taking this positive step toward
inclusion.
The
Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) has mandated all its affiliated
schools to appoint special educators and to create an evaluation programme for
differently abled students, based on their abilities and skill sets. Based on
the recommendations of its curriculum committee in August last year, the board
issued a circular to all its schools this week, saying admission should not be
denied to such students.
Board
officials said that they issued the circular after finding that many schools
did not have special educators yet, and refused admission to students with
special needs. “It is being reiterated to these schools through this circular
that if it fails to provide attention to a child with special needs or makes a
pretext of denying admission to any category of differently abled children, it
henceforth will be liable to stringent action even to the extent of
disaffiliation” said a senior official of the board.
Social inclusion
as a concept is not sufficiently mainstreamed and institutions who are willing
to be inclusive don’t know how to go about it. This is what we at impART – an initiative of
Snehadhara Foundation are set out to do : in
the same institution we will work to get more children included and taught
(direct focus on inclusion) and second we will work with the schools to prepare
the schools and the children in these schools to be more empathetic towards the
learning of these children. In doing so we will construct a model of empathetic
and inclusive schools which can be replicated readily by any number of other institutions.
Methodology and practice of Arts Based Therapy (ABT) needs to occupy a
central place in education to bridge the gap. Join us if you are a school, an
institution, a teacher, a special educator , a parent in taking this to many
schools and changing the inclusion landscape in the State.
