No special teachers for Delhi’s differently-abled children

It has been two years since a high court order, but the Delhi government is yet to recruit permanent teachers for differently-abled children in its schools. On September 15, 2009, the court had directed the Delhi government, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to employ at least two special teachers on a permanent basis for differently-abled children in each of their schools. Around 3,000 schools are run by these bodies.

Responding to the court’s directive, the government had set up a recruitment board and created 926 posts for special teachers who were to be appointed by January 2011. Besides that, MCD had also announced the creation of 1,700 posts of special teachers.

However, the government and the civic agency have not appointed even a single teacher on a permanent basis, said lawyer Ashok Agarwal, in response to whose petition the high court had issued the order.

Currently, there are around two lakh disabled children in the city, of whom very few are enrolled in schools. And the number of those studying in government, MCD and NDMC schools has dropped significantly due to the absence of special teachers.

The Delhi government, however, claimed this is not true.

“We have hired around 300 specially-trained teachers on a contractual basis with a monthly salary of R16,000,” said RP Yadav, deputy director, Delhi’s education department (north district).

“The process of recruiting permanent teachers is under way and will be completed soon. Currently, around 25,000 disabled children are studying in Classes 1 to 8 and over 7,000 in Classes 9 to 12 in our schools,” he added.

However, MCD has not even created the posts for these special teachers, let alone employing them.“We have sent recruitment regulation to the urban development ministry and the matter for creating these posts is lying with the ministry,” said Ashok Sharma, assistant director, MCD’s education department.