Court seeks KVS response on teachers for handicapped

The Delhi High Court has directed the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) to inform by Friday what it has decided to do for appointment of special teachers for physically-challenged students studying in Kendriya Vidyalayas across the country.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice A.P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar passed the direction after going through an affidavit filed by the Joint Commissioner (Academics) of the Sangathan where it showed through a chart that there were a total of 1,145 physically students studying in different Vidyalayas falling under its 18 regions but there was no special teacher for them in any of them.

The Board of Governors of KVS was seized of the matter and as soon as it took a decision in this regard appointment of special teachers would take place, the affidavit said.

The affidavit further said that KVS would not lag behind in providing facilities to its physically-challenged students.

The Bench has been hearing a public interest litigation by voluntary organisation Social Jurist drawing the attention of the Court to complete absence of special teachers for physically-challenged students in these Vidyalayas.

The petitioner through its lawyer, Ashok Agarwal, submitted that there were more than 800 Kendriya Vidyalayas in the country and about 10 lakh students studied in them but there were no special educators in these schools to teach the differently-enabled students.

In Delhi alone, there were about 75 Kendriya Vidyalayas in which about one lakh students study but they had no qualified special educator for the physically challenged students, the petitioner submitted.

The Bench also issued a notice to the Navodaya Vidyalaya Sangathan on the same issue when Mr. Agarwal submitted before it that a similar situation prevailed in the Navodaya Vidyalayas.

The High Court has already directed the Delhi Government and the civic bodies here to recruit two qualified special educators in each school run by them to take care of the teaching needs of physically challenged students there.