Margins

1. Date

2. Ikegai: Reason for existence

3. Inclusive education
The conscious decision that no child gets left behind in mainstream life

4. Inclusion sits at the heart of a good education and a good
upbringing.
-Founding motto

5. There are no aberrations in nature

6. UNICEF- ROSA observations of
inclusive education in India

7. ✤ The Community School Programme is a unique multi-state,
multi-agency initiative. UN organizations—UNDP, UNICEF,
UNFPA, UNESCO and ILO—are participating in the
programme with five nodal ministries and nine state
departments.
✤ A study by CBR Network (2001) for identifying good
practices in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh noted that that
there is a lack of operational guidelines for teacher training
programmes on the planning and management of inclusive
education practices in the Indian context.

8. ✤ IEDC programme implemented by the government
and NGOs had vast discrepancies in terms of teacher
training.
✤ These training programmes or skills development
programmes for general teachers and for resource
teachers lack clarity.
✤ Discrepancies in teacher preparation are certainly an
area of major concern. There is a need for adequate
preparation of general teachers, textbooks, and
learning materials based on inclusive education
principles.

9. ✤ IEDC needs to be redesigned on the lines of inclusive
education for maximum reach and impact. The IEDC
model used in DPEP districts has not gone beyond
identification, and providing aids and appliances.

10. Personal observations during the course
of my work in inclusive education

11. ✤ The lacunae in policy and its implementation has
created a mostly hostile and extremely dangerous
environment for disability in Indian schools.
✤ This has resulted in a complete lack of trained
inclusive education practitioners.
✤ Most school teachers are, counter productively,
trained by special centres practicing segregation.
✤ This has further desensitised an educational ethos
already insensitive to inclusion.

12. ✤ Amongst the poor, the dependent disabled die and
decay in oblivion.
✤ Amongst the rich, the dependent disabled die and
decay in isolation.

13. Yet inclusive education remains
✤ the safest
✤ healthiest
✤ most productive
✤ most developmentally advanced way to raise children
with any disability.

14. The plan

15. ✤ One child at a time
✤ One family at a time
✤ One school at a time

16. ✤ Show
✤ Teach
✤ Demonstrate how inclusive education even of the
most severely disabled is possible.

17. We take strength from the fact that this has not been done
before in India

18. Work in progress
✤ Identification of severely disabled children and families in
Haryana.
✤ Coordination with Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and IEDC ( Education
department Haryana)
✤ Mobilisation of volunteers from Janki Devi College, Delhi
University.
✤ Training of government special educators.

19. ✤ Over the course of ten years we have developed a
sophisticated inclusive education training program
based on sound inclusive education principles.
✤ An emerging training staff equipped to train and
handle inclusive education of all disabilities at any
school level.
✤ Evolution of highly functional inclusion guidelines for
school management, children and parents.

20. ✤ Conducting disability rights workshops and forums for
stakeholders if inclusive education.
✤ Lectures and conferences on the state of inclusive
education in India.

21. Conclusion
✤ With the successful inclusion of a pilot project of 20
children in schools, a viable model is being created for
all IEDC districts and states.