The Centre would fund the transition of the National Institute for Speech and Hearing (NISH) on its way to becoming the National University for Disabilities Studies and Rehabilitation Sciences.
In his budget speech on Saturday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely announced that NISH would be made a university.
The State government had, in 2014, decided to grant the status of a varsity to NISH. Even though no announcement was made as to the amount that would be forthcoming from the Centre, NISH had asked for a Central assistance of Rs.200 crore over a five-year period.
When NISH had approached the Union Ministry for Social Justice, seeking more funds, it was told that a one-time grant would be forthcoming. “We do not know whether today’s announcement was a result of that,” NISH executive director Samuel N. Mathew said here. Planning Board Member G. Vijayaraghavan told The Hindu on Saturday that board Vice Chairman K.M. Chandrasekhar had worked to get the NISH project through to the Union Budget.
Dr. Mathew said NISH was already offering courses for children with auditory challenges (B.Sc. Computer Science, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Bachelor of Commerce) and courses to groom professionals (bachelor’s and master’s courses in Audiology and Speech Language Pathology [SLP] and a diploma programme for those intending to teach children with challenges. Now, the 9.75-acre campus hosted 200 children with auditory challenges and 100 students who were to become professionals in the SLP sector, he said.
Of immediate concern for the proposed varsity would be the institution of courses in higher education for those with ‘higher functioning’ autism, multiple challenges, and cerebral palsy. “Normally, those with cerebral palsy are groomed with the differently abled.
But there would be differing levels of intelligence. They need to be assessed and graded and educated accordingly,” Dr. Mathew says.
On the professional side, there was a huge demand for counselling and psychological and social activities. NISH was also looking at an integrated B.Ed. for creating professionals in the field of special education, he added.