Schoolteachers to be trained in handling disabled student

Coimbatore: Around 1,900 teachers in the district, who teach Class IX to XII in government high and higher secondary schools, will be trained to handle differently abled students. The training sessions, which are conducted by Samagra Shiksha under the Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS) scheme, will be held from Wednesday to Friday in four educational districts in Coimbatore.
Officials said subject teachers along with special educators who exclusively handle differently abled students will be trained in the programme. “They will be made to understand the psychology of differently abled students, how to teach them and how to make them mingle with their classmates,” said a Samagra Shiksha official.
With the most of the differently abled students in the secondary level are in Class IX and X, the training will mainly focus on teachers from those classes, the official said.
Under the IEDSS scheme, differently abled students were brought to mainstream classrooms from special centres. “There are 659 differently abled students from Class IX to XII in government high and higher secondary schools in the district. We would train teachers to be sensitive and to understand their issues. We held such training sessions previous years too,” the official said.
The teachers will be trained on handling children with various kinds of disabilities such as visual disability, hearing impairment, orthopedic disability and psychological disabilities. Special educators who handle differently abled children would be the resource persons for the training sessions, which would be held in three batches.
Earlier this year, 221 disabled students were given aid equipment such as hearing aids, walkers, multi-sensory inclusive educational (MSIED) kits and cerebral palsy chairs, through a subsidy from Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (Alimco). They will also receive exemptions and aid in board exams such as scribes, extra time and exemption from language papers, depending on their ability.