Karnataka govt schools to open doors to kids with disabilities

BENGALURU: The department of primary and secondary education, in its efforts to make education inclusive, has roped in an organisation to train its teachers. The statewide project is called ‘Nanagu Shaale’ (School For Me Too) and is already running in the two educational districts of Koppal and Hubballi-Dharwad -- and will be extended to all 33 educational districts.

The project is meant for 1200 Block Integrated Education Resource Teachers (BIERT), who have a mandate of taking care of children with disabilities in each block, and will be equipped with the basics of inclusive education. However, the department is said to have just 700 such teachers and is in the process of recruiting the remainder.

Diana Vincent, director of Fourth Wave Foundation, said the problem is that teachers don’t even know how inclusion is made possible, whereas in Europe, inclusion is just an ordinary process where they have a special teacher and children come to regular classrooms and take an extra set of classes for coping mechanisms.

A similar style of inclusion will be taught to teachers here, by spending a few extra hours after classes, so students can attend regular school. This, Diana says, also falls in line with the NEP idea where there will be no more special schools, and every child will belong to a local/village school. The team is also looking at working with Anganwadi workers, so segregation does not take place at an early age, but children are equipped with modules to help them get integrated in regular schools.