Why the draft National Education Policy

Here are some demanding statistics that UNESCO recently released in its 2019 State of the Education Report for India – Children with Disabilities: 75% of children with disabilities (CWD) inside the age of 5 and one-fourth of them inside the age organization of five to 19 do now not attend schools or any educational institution. Moreover, the variety of youngsters enrolled in college has been extensively collapsing with every successive level of education.

This is the schooling system for students with disabilities in India, which has been sick-conceived within the Draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019. According to the draft, the new schooling rules had been based on the standards of getting entry to fairness, first class, affordability, and accountability. However, getting the right to access has no longer moved beyond the necessity of ramps and handrails for college students and teachers with disabilities.

The draft presently lacks experience of meaningful inclusiveness of college students with disabilities and factors out a group of firms and people operating with disabilities. In a comprehensive reaction letter to the Minister of Human Resource Development (MHRD), those specialists have called for inclusive training to counter stigmatization and discrimination of individuals with disabilities (PwD) in society.

In addition to suggesting a sequence of guidelines for inclusive education and schoolroom practices for kids with disabilities, they have also recognized policies inside the draft that lack inclusiveness in phrases of getting entry to, coaching methodologies, centers at college, funding, and programs for college students and teachers with disabilities in addition to their caregivers.

First, time to trade vocabulary.

Neither incapacity companies nor the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MSJE) and Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities have been consulted in the course of the initial drafting procedure, points out Amba Salelkar, one of the activists who drafted the letter and an attorney with the Equals Centre for Promotion of Social Justice.

The draft NEP speaks approximately CWD in only a few regions. In the sub-chapters on CWD, the draft uses phrases consisting of “unique training” and “children with unique wishes.” These terms must be executed away with, say, disability rights activists in the letter.

“Students with disabilities must now not be visible to need ‘unique treatment’; as an alternative, they want resorts to be capable of having a look at like everybody else. The period’ kids with disabilities’ is according to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2017. Besides, using phrases inclusive of CWSN (Children With Special Needs) and differently-abled in the record may confuse the stakeholders and duty bearers,” says incapacity rights activists in the letter.

How regulations cannot be discriminatory stereotyping.

Experts additionally pointed out that positive rules are presently discriminatory or suggest exclusion. Many believe CWD cannot examine and exclude foundational literacy and numeracy development. That’s discrimination. Such students’ needs should be protected while designing the curriculum on sex education, bodily training, yoga, art, track, or dance.

The failure to make reasonable lodging is a shape of discrimination, say experts. Affordable lodging refers to the essential and suitable modification. It changes the surroundings to allow persons with disabilities (PwD) to revel in and exercise their rights similarly to others.

“Without those hotels, the right is unnecessary,” Amba tells TNM. “For instance, a school does not discriminate in admissions; however, if it doesn’t offer blind students with braille books, that’s discrimination.”

Stereotyping children with disabilities, particularly the ones from marginalized communities, is commonplace. Schools should not conform to stereotypes and push a pupil with visible impairment to absorb making song instructions or a comparable art shape if they are not curious about pursuing it. “Curriculum ought to be audited for regressive and old references to humans from marginalized groups, such as PwD; for instance, the perpetuation of stereotypes approximately leprosy in faculty biology textbooks,” say specialists.

Read: My incapacity is not a weak spot: Kerala boy actions SC to look at the remedy.
As a step toward finishing segregation, the team of specialists indicates bringing all academic establishments run using charitable establishments or recognized with the aid of the Department of Disability/Social Justice under the

Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Amba explains why: “Special faculties are not dealt with on par with faculties underneath the MHRD. There’s an exclusion in teacher blessings, applying the Right To Education (RTE), syllabus, mid-day meal, or even the certification that scholars get on finishing touch. We can’t get admission to a vocational route with a special college certificate.”

Harmonized Guidelines

Harmonized Guidelines and Space Standards for Barrier-Free Built Environment for Disabled and Elderly Persons, 2015 is the foundation for inclusive education. These hints provide a framework to facilitate inclusive designs of public and private areas to ensure greater accessibility for PwD and empower them to participate in society’s development.

These harmonized tips are not extended to the only infrastructure but to mid-day food and faculty’s educational, social, extra, and co-curricular aspects.

Currently, the mid-day programs exclude CWD, pointing out the professionals. These college students don’t have the means or guide to place the food on the plates or mouth or are not given help while ingesting. As a result, many go hungry or have meals at home. In the latter case, many don’t return to high school after the midday food. The specialists advise good enough staff to assist youngsters who require help.