ACADEMIC EVENTS AT HACSE

HASHU ADVANI COLLEGE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION has launched - ANKOOR, empowerment unit for children with LEARNING DISABILITIES. The objective of the activity is threefold: tuning school system to make it more disability friendly, family empowerment and individual support services to the concerned students. As the first step, ANKOOR is holding a school screening to identify the students with learning disabilities currently studying in lower primary classes in and around Chembur. Towards this purpose, a workshop for class teachers of lower primary section of various schools was held on 3rd March 2012. Overwhelming response was received by schools and teachers wherein 65 teachers enrolled as soon as they knew about it. This is an indicator that students with learning disabilities are currently studying in schools in big number and more number of teachers is concerned about education of these students.

There is a growing concern for children and youth with learning disabilities. The term learning disability describes children, adolescents and adults who have problems in learning such as reading, spelling, writing and mathematics. This group differs from those having handicaps such as mental retardation, visual or hearing impairments and emotional/behavioral disorders. Learning disability is a difficult to notice handicap. Yet it is quite common and the incidence of this disability is quite high. For example, as per one of the many estimates, nearly 13-14 percent of the schools going children have learning disorders in India.

Over and above the common needs of love, care and affection, children with learning disabilities have more specific needs which have to be fulfilled in order to mainstream them educationally and socially. These include early diagnosis, mature and accommodative teachers, supportive families, flexible curriculum and assessment strategies, patient and diversity friendly school environment etc. Inclusive education is possible only if adequate support is provided to the schools. Teacher orientation to disability and participation in identifying the appropriate students is extremely crucial. The said workshop was one of the steps towards this purpose. Dr Asmita Huddar, principal of HACSE appealed to the class teachers that if teachers want to see positive changes in the current school system, they have to become the agents of that expected change. Identifying diverse learning needs would be the beginning of this effort. Ms Gayatri Sirur Assistant professor explained the screening tool - BCSLD Behavioral Checklist for screening the Learning Disabled (Swarup and Mehta, 2011). The teachers would complete the checklists by March end so that parents and schools can be informed about it before summer break. Approximately 3600 students will be covered under this school screening and students for whom learning disability is suspected will be sent for assessment and diagnosis.

Who doesn’t want a right based, diversity friendly and inclusive society! But we need to tune our schools to be accommodative before we dream of having that kind of society. As higher education agencies we all need to contribute squirrels’ share in the larger goal of EDUCATION FOR ALL.