Inclusive Education

NDTV's show had Bharka Dutt holding a discussion on inclusive education.

Latha Vaidyanthan from Modern School Delhi spoke about the readiness of these schools to take children with impairment of any kind.

My mother taught in a government aided school and she had two children who had hearing and speech impairment in her class and her colleague had one girl who was spastic.

One of my classmates was totally blind and the other was a polio afflicted child who could not walk. These were ordinary schools with nothing fancy to cater to the special needs of these children. Teachers and the headmistress used their hearts and not their heads while dealing with us and therefore never thought of 'readiness' and use that as an excuse to deprive some section of the population, their right to education.

Tell me something - in India , how many homes have special toilets, how many places have ramps and dont people with impairment manage. It is an appalling state of affairs that we dont have facilities to cater to special needs and we need to change it , but the reality is that people manage.

Wont kids and parents be happy that a school is catering to the educational needs and find a work around for other needs? In the process of making every thing ideal, we tend to lose time and several children get impacted.

If we use our heart and not head we can make things happen like the headmistress and the teachers of a government aided school did and continue to do that .