Integrated Education System For Visually Impaired

Student with visual impairment learning with the help of study aid in a school in Coimbatore. G. Gopal and his friend Muthukumar (names changed) walk with hands around each other’s shoulders across the school grounds. From a distance it is hard to say that they are both severely visually impaired. Studying in Standard IX at CSI Boys Higher Secondary School, they are among the many students with disabilities who have benefited from the integrated education system.

Having studied in a normal school with the help of resource teachers assisting them, they have always been academic achievers.But, now, the going has got unbelievably tough for disabled students like them. For the whole of 2007, a majority of aided schools in Tamil Nadu implementing integrated education have not received financial assistance from the Government. According to the Tamil Nadu Association of Resource Teachers, the resource teachers have been working without salary for over a year and the disabled students in hostels are living in constant fear of being expelled for not paying fees.

They also have to endure verbal harassment from hostel wardens. “They sometimes do not let us go to school,” says Gopal. Schools integrating children with disabilities receive aids from the Government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who take care of the education, accommodation and similar requirements of children. Assistance to disabled children and the salary for resource teachers are sanctioned by the Ministry of Human Resource Development under the Integrated Education for Disabled Children scheme through the Government of Tamil Nadu.

According to the association, the grant for 2006-2007 was sanctioned by the Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD) and was released in September 2007. The money, which ought to have reached the NGOs through the Directorate of School Education, is yet to reach them, the NGO alleges. Though the first instalment for the year 2007-2008 had been sanctioned by the MHRD in November 2007, the NGOs are yet to receive the grants. The expenses towards books and stationery for 2,766 disabled children (Rs.400 a child), expenses towards uniform (Rs.200 a child), hostel fees for 839 children (Rs.2,000 a child), reader allowance for 399 children with severe visual impairment (Rs.500 a child), and aids and appliances for 323 disabled children (Rs.2,000 a child) are included in the grant.

“We get necessary support in terms of infrastructure from the school. But, we have not got our salary for over a year and the students have got no educational material,” says Nirmala (name changed), a resource teacher of TELC Middle School. “Most of these students hail from very poor families and their parents can’t support their education. Until the Government initiates action, we are helpless in assisting these children,” says H.Samson, president of Cheran Region Christian Society, an NGO that supports aided schools in integrated education.

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