The Arvind Kejriwal government has given priority to issues like regularisation of school fee and transparency in the admission process, but there has been very little improvement when it comes to taking care of the needs of children with special needs.
In its manifesto, the AAP had promised to help students with disabilities when it comes to getting admission and also provide them financial support. It had also pledged to make education more inclusive by providing special educators in all schools to enable children with special needs to study at regular government schools.
While there has been no significant development on the first promise, schools say things are changing for the better when it comes to ensuring special educators.
“We now have sufficient number of special educators in school. Posts that had been lying vacant since two years have been filled after the AAP government came to power,” said the principal of a school.
“Earlier, teachers meant for teaching hearing-impaired students were dealing with visually-impaired students. But, now we have got the current teachers,” the principal added.
The Delhi High Court had in 2014 ordered schools to hire special educators for children with special needs.
While private schools have sufficient number of educators, government schools were found lacking till about a year ago.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had also made it mandatory for all schools in the city to have a special educator.
Also, there was no state policy in Delhi for people with disabilities — a process the AAP government has set rolling. In fact, a draft policy – State Policy and Action Plan for People with Disabilities – had been prepared and put up on the government website to invite suggestions.
