Teaching the teachers

Is our education system equipped to handle the needs of students with blindness and visual disability? Maybe not, even though the Persons with Disability Act 1995 guarantees them the fundamental right to education. Koyel Lahiri investigates why their numbers in mainstream schools remain dismally low.

With 40 percent vision, Ayush Bhutani was entitled to an extra hour to finish his Class 10 Board exam papers. However, the Central Board of Secondary Education (C.B.S.E.) refused to give him permission. The gentleman dealing with him told him that his vision loss wasn’t severe enough to warrant the extra time. On being told that his sister Aditi, who was four years his senior and had also had vision loss, had been granted the extra hour, they were subjected to unpleasant comments such as how “blind and visually impaired students should take up ‘soft’ subjects like Humanities, or music, etc”. Although his father and his school repeatedly requested the gentleman, Ayush had to finish his board exams within the mandatory three hours like other students, but unlike other students, he had only 40 percent vision. “They sent me a writer,” he says. “I didn’t need a writer; I needed larger fonts on the question paper and I needed extra time. I’ve never used a writer; how could they expect me to suddenly give my Board Exams with one?” It is to his immense credit that despite all this, he managed to get 95 percent!

This is only one example of the systemic inadequacies that students with visual disabilities face. Why is our educational system not able to deal with their needs better?

On March 21, 2005, the Minister for Human Resource Development, Mr. Arjun Singh, presented the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Children and Youth with Disabilities, in the Rajya Sabha. One of its goals was to ensure inclusive education for children with disabilities.

The plan envisages that all children with disabilities will be part of mainstream schools, which will be fully equipped to cater to their needs by 2020. Singh’s Action Plan also includes provisions for barrier-free access, Braille books, Talking Text Books, Reading Machines and computers with speech software. In addition, every school will have adequate number of sign language interpreters, transcription services and a loop induction system for the hearing impaired students. The idea is to ensure that every child has access to mainstream education and no child is turned down on grounds of disability. (See Arjun Singh announces plan to make education disabled-friendly by 2020 for more information.)

Truly admirable, but are mainstream teachers equipped to teach students with visual disability?

Listed among the objectives of the Plan are also that (a) mainstream and specialist training institutions… facilitate the growth of a cadre of teachers trained to work with the principles of inclusion; and (b) existing physical infrastructure and teaching methodologies be modified to meet the needs of all children, including children with special needs.

It is interesting to note that the Bachelor of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed) curriculum, an educational requirement for all teachers, is so structured that there is no material available on disability and teaching pedagogy required for inclusive education, except for those who take the optional paper on Special Education. Ms. Manisha Gulati, a teacher at Government School, Rajouri Garden, observes that very few people opt for this particular paper, and points out its theoretical nature. Taking a look at the syllabus of the paper, as listed on the Delhi University website, we see the truth of her words. Of the five units listed, two-and-a-half deal with nature, extent and prevalence of disability among children, and causes and prevention of various disabilities, etc. Effectively, only half of the 50-mark paper deals with the actual classroom experience of teaching in an inclusive set-up.

It is unfortunate that our educational planners felt that this was an issue that could be optional, that it need not be addressed by all future teachers. Today, it often happens that this lack of experience adversely affects students with disabilities studying in mainstream schools.

Ayush, who has been in the news recently for his achievement, is one student who has benefitted from teachers who had previous experience in teaching a visually impaired child -- his sister. Aditi, now a final-year student of Shri Ram College of Commerce, was the first visually impaired student to enroll at D.A.V. Public School, Sector 13, Faridabad. A vision loss of 60 percent meant that teachers needed to change their pedagogy of teaching in order to effectively communicate with Aditi. Their lack of training and experience meant that Aditi faced countless problems in her school life. Teachers were initially unable to understand things like why she needed to be seated in the front row all the time, and why she needed them to read out everything they wrote on the blackboard. “I used to be unable to read the questions they wrote on the blackboard during class tests, and I was too scared to ask them to repeat it,” she says. A bright student, she slowly began performing badly in academics. She slipped into depression and lost self-confidence. It took her many years to break out of this, and she began to participate in extra-curricular activities like debates, encouraged by her English teacher in Class 11. The experience Aditi’s teachers gained helped Ayush’s classroom experience, as his teachers now knew what they had to do differently.

There isn’t much teachers need to do, feel Ayush and Aditi. They need to read out everything they write on the blackboard, and they need to be approachable, so one can fearlessly ask for help if required.

It is interesting to note how experience is all it takes for teachers to effectively change their methodology of teaching to include students with visual disability in mainstream classrooms. Manisha and her sister Amita, both blind from birth, themselves studied in a mainstream school. The Government School in the Presidential Estate had no specially trained teachers, except for a Resource Teacher who taught Braille. However, because the school has had a history of admitting many blind and visually impaired students, the teachers and students had no problems in the classrooms.

If this valuable experience were to be made available to all teachers during their B.El.Ed programme training period, then perhaps students like Aditi wouldn’t have to suffer.

Teaching methodology in classrooms, however, is not the only object of concern in inclusive education; availability of appropriate textbooks is also an important factor. When Manisha and Amita were students, there weren’t Braille versions of all textbooks. The ones that were there were limited, and students had to borrow them by turn. The situation seems to have improved today, with libraries being available in some organisations and colleges.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (N.C.E.R.T.) too ensures that its books are available for everybody. Dr. Anita Julka, Reader, Department of Education of Groups with Special Needs at the N.C.E.R.T., says, “All N.C.E.R.T. books are available in Braille with the help of the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped and Braille presses all over the country. Many non-governmental organisations are also making the Braille textbooks and Talking Books available to children free of cost.” Regarding new N.C.E.R.T. textbooks, she says, “The changes made by N.C.E.R.T in the textbooks recently would definitely be reflected in the Braille textbooks and Talking Books as blind and visually impaired children use the same textbooks as all other children. The e-text of these new textbooks is sent to the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped for transcribing into Braille and for sending it to other Braille presses and voluntary organisations.”

Another aspect of mainstream schooling for blind and visually impaired students is the peer factor. Since the numbers of such students (despite the passing of the Persons with Disability Act 1995) in mainstream schools are so dismally low, it often happens that there is only one such child in a classroom. Sometimes it leads to the child’s classmates seeing him or her as an oddity, and the child faces problems making friends. Aditi says she never had many friends. Even in Class 12, she didn’t have a peer group. Ms. Annie Koshi, Principal, St. Mary’s School, notes that for children with visual disabilities, being accepted by sighted children as they grow older and move into adolescence is a problem.

The most viable solution to this seems to be ensuring that more and more students with visual disability enter the mainstream. This is evident from Manisha’s experience in school where she didn’t face a problem with friends. Although there were students who discriminated against her and her sister, they had their own peer group, possibly because their school had a history of including students from all walks of life.

If the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Children and Youth with Disabilities is to become a reality, more than just the B.El.Ed. syllabus needs to change: people need to change their attitudes. The apathy and gross indifference of certain people in the educational sector is brought to light by Ayush’s and Aditi’s experiences.

Aditi, too, was a victim of this apathetic attitude displayed, in her case, by her invigilators. Despite the Board’s permission to write for an extra hour in her Class 10 Board exams, she was allowed only 10 minutes after her three hours were up. The invigilators didn’t want to stay back for the extra time and even those 10 minutes saw them grouped around Aditi’s desk, gossiping loudly.

Representatives of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (N.I.E.P.A.), Rehabilitation Council of India (R.C.I.), N.C.E.R.T. and teachers of inclusive classrooms agree that a lot needs to be done for inclusive education to become a widespread reality. Ms. Koshi says that the B.El.Ed. curriculum needs to be revamped on many counts to enable future teachers to better understand the requirements of the classroom of today.

“Inclusion is not something that many understand, let alone feel that they need to address in a professional manner,” she says.

Dr. Julka says, “There should definitely be a compulsory paper equipping the teachers with Inclusive Pedagogy and making them aware of special educational needs of different children. Also all other papers for B.Ed. must be so designed that the knowledge and skills imparted should also be used for including a diverse group of children and not only cater to the so-called normal children.”

Dr. Sudesh Mukhopadhyay Head, Educational Policy Unit, N.I.E.P.A., has a different take on this. While she agrees that teachers ought to train in inclusive classrooms as a part of their B.El.Ed. programme, she feels that it is a myth that teachers need special training outside of B.El.Ed to be able to deliver in such situations. Teachers need to be told that all the skills they require are given to them in their B.El.Ed., she says. According to her, less than 20 percent of the curriculum needs to be adapted. The teacher has to apply himself or herself constantly and is obligated to make every child comfortable in class, says she.

Inclusive education is not a distant dream. Despite all shortcomings of the educational system we know that the educational planners are aware of the shortcomings of the system. Steps are being taken to rectify the situation. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the R.C.I. and the National Council of Teachers Education (N.C.T.E.) on January 19, 2005, Delhi, was significant as these are the two Councils responsible for setting and maintaining the standards of education in the country. The coming together of the R.C.I. and N.C.T.E. will hopefully fill the gap by devising suitable methods for training the existing teachers and incorporating the material on special education in the curriculum of teacher training. And make the educational system in our country better equipped to teach students with visual disabilities.