Special education is related to education with regard to children with special needs. It is basically a neurological disorder that affects the ability of the person to understand, and use spoken or written language. It is a learning disability that involves facing issues when doing mathematical calculations, coordinating movements, or event direct attention for that matter.
Learning disabilities is a tree and has various branches underneath it. It has more specific disabilities which include, dyscalculia. This affects a person’s ability to understand numbers or even deal with math facts. Another could be Auditory Processing Disorder which is the inability to correctly perceive sound. Adding to that is dysgraphia, dyslexia, and NLD (nonverbal learning disabilities). It is termed as Specific learning disabilities when they individually. But, as termed as Learning disabilities when it shows symptoms of two or more disabilities.
Research has been conducted and it suggests that approximately 15% of Indian students are diagnosed with learning disabilities. A 5 yearlong study was conducted by a group of child physiologists named Shipra Singh et. al which has results that proved a total of 2015 children were diagnosed with specific learning disabilities. Many children who were diagnosed with SLD’s were ages 8-12 years.
Learning disability is such that it cannot be cured or fixed. So basically it is a lifelong challenge. But with appropriate treatments and interventions, they surely can achieve success. One of the most common and least talked about treatment is special education. What happens in this is a trained educator performs an educational evaluation for the child so as to assess the child’s potential in relation to its academic performance. Once the results are out, the teachers, caretakers, and doctors build an approach for the child to teach them learning skills, with the help of building the child’s ability and strength.
India has no certain policies for special needs. Even if they do it isn’t pretty clear. The “Children with Specific Learning Disabilities (Identification and Support in Education)” bill was first introduced in India in the year 2016. This bill identifies SLDs that are mentioned above such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and it makes guidelines that help to improve awareness and promoting research on learning disabilities. It also gives recommendations on hiring teachers, also helps to identify these disabilities at an earlier stage by making testing and treatment options affordable and available to all sectors of society. India also has a few governmental organizations that focus mainly on creating awareness and remove the stigma that surrounds learning disabilities. Ministry of social justice and empowerment runs desperate schools for children with special needs. Ministry of human resource department promotes highly that these students should be included more of in regular classes and schools. There is a handful of the good and best schools in Andhra Pradesh and such states that promote equality of education to such children.
On one hand, we do have many government initiatives that are helping to reduce the stigma around learning disabilities, but the Indian school system still has a long way to go. Colleges do not accept students with learning disabilities, or with special needs. Having no specific guidelines for inclusivity will surely result in no schools and colleges understanding how to be more inclusive. The statistic of Census of India clearly shows us the percent of students that actually enroll in the best school with good faculty in Andhra Pradesh. Almost 89% of kids with learning disabilities are enrolled in primary school. When only 8.5% actually get to go to secondary school and merely 2.3% of kids with special needs are able to reach higher secondary schools. Apart from these other factors such as economic, legal, technical, financial also come in the way of a child’s education especially those who have learning disabilities.
Therefore, such a large population will surely mean an increasing number of kids having learning disabilities. It is high time that the best school for all-around education in Andhra Pradesh starts to become inclusive of students with special needs. This will surely be the right treatment for them and help them achieve their success. Only the government making rules and not making sure that the schools strictly follow them will be of no use. It is high time that government takes strict actions against schools that don’t make these kids inclusive.
Sri Prakash educational institutions are one of those reputed institutions offering world-class education to each student. Strongly believing that every child has the right to an education they have world-class faculty to train each child. We welcome children with special care and attention giving them a feeling of equality in terms of the right to education and equality.
