The new National Education Policy 2019 is up for public comment till 31 July 2019. While the policy addresses a whole gamut of areas in education including inclusion of person’s with disability, it may need to address how to mainstream PWD’s into current educational systems in depth. A group of citizen volunteers from PwD inclusion community discussed deeply on how NEP could involve aspects of inclusion and accessibility of Children with Special needs.

1. National Education Policy
2019
Feedback from Persons with Disability community

2. Abbreviations
• CWSN – Child/Children with Special Need
• IAS – Indian Administrative Service
• IFS – Indian Foreign Service
• IT – Information technology
• NEP – National Education Policy 2019
• NGO – Non-Government Organization
• PwD – Person(s) with Disability

3. Purpose
• The new National Education Policy 2019 is up for public comment till
31 July 2019. While the policy addresses a whole gamut of areas in
education including inclusion of person’s with disability, it may need
to address how to mainstream PWD’s into current educational
systems in depth.
• A group of citizen volunteers from PwD inclusion community
discussed deeply on how NEP could involve aspects of inclusion and
accessibility of Children with Special needs.

4. Agenda for conference call – 27th July 2019
• Introductions – 10 min
• Understanding NEP 2019 and aspects of PwD inclusion – 5 min
• First circle of sharing a personal anecdote on Inclusive education – 15
min
• Second Circle of deeper thoughts/comments/reviews on NEP 2019 –
30 min

5. Participants
Name Persona/Attribute
Ashwin Karthik IT Professional, Engineer, PwD
(Cerebral Palsy)
Bhumika Patel Special Educator, Entrepreneur
Lakshmi Kulkarni IT Professional, Mother
Madhava Rao Author, PwD(Visual Impairment)
Pavithra YS Social Entrepreneur (PwD),
Mother
Priyanka Agarwal IT Professional, Project Manager,
PwD (Visual Impairment)
Priya M Rao Parent, NOS expert
Sunil Prabhakaran IT Professional, Entrepreneur,

6. Nothing about us, without us
– Javed Abidi

7. Overview of PwD Inclusion aspects in NEP 2019
NEP recognizes the importance of providing equal opportunities of obtaining quality education
PWD’s (Right to Education act 2012)
Financial Support
to
Schools & resource centers
Physical
Accessibility
To Schools
Accessible
resources
Tech, content, intervention
Home Based
Education
NOS, Resource centers
Special Educators
Cluster level
Scholarships
Primary & secondary
education levels

8. Discussion Summary (1/2)
Core Topic Problem What does NEP 2019
address?
New Ideas/Suggestions
Disability
Sensitization
People don’t know how to approach/handle a
CWSN. For e.g., In school environment, it could
be the teaching staff, care-taker, house-keeping
staff and class mates too.
P6.8.7 Special Educators &
Therapists with Cross-
disability training
P4.4.2 No hard separation
of content in terms of
curricular, extra-curricular,
or co-curricular areas.
P4.5.3 Exposure to three or
more languages in schools
Teacher training needs to have a subject/credit on disability
sensitization (basics of 21 disabilities in PWD act and specialization
in a subset of them) this will help shape future educationists
mindset.
Like arts, Physical Education etc Children could have
sensitization/empathy-building subjects that they could chose from.
Can Indian Sign Language be introduced as an optional 3rd language
that all children could chose besides Indian and foreign languages
that are currently offered?
In the lines of IAS, IFS, can NEP moot the idea of ITS. Indian
Teaching Service. This would bring back teaching as not just a noble
profession but a financially lucrative option too besides the rigor of
civil service. ITS should also include subject/credit on disability
sensitization.
Accessible
Infrastructure
Physical barriers are still a biggest hindrance
for CWSN to make it to the classroom.
P6.8.3 Physical access to
Schools for CWSN. Funding
for Barrier-free structures,
Ramps, Handrails, Disabled-
friendly toilets,
Transportation in school
complexes in the interim
and for all school in long
term
Accessible Infrastructure could be given great weightage for private
school/college/university accreditation.
Can CWSN give exams online from the comfort of their homes? A
lot of people with special needs depend on scribes and a lot of
what they want to write in exams gets lost in communication. Those
CWSN who can use computers (with assistive aids like screen
reading software) would be able to write exams better.

9. Discussion Summary (2/2)
Core Topic Problem What does NEP 2019
address?
New Ideas/Suggestions
Accessible
Content
How does a CWSN with visual impairment
learn math and science concepts which are
pictorial in nature?
How does a child who has learnings barriers
(not classified as disability) but can cope up
with multi-disciplinary form of learning
P6.8.4 Inclusion of
children with special
needs: Assistive devices
and appropriate
technology-based tools,
as well as adequate and
language-appropriate
teaching-learning
materials (e.g. textbooks
in accessible formats such
as large print and Braille)
Atal Tinkering Labs in schools should include building accessible/tactile
aids for teaching CWSN mathematics and science through 3D models
that they can touch and feel
Early
Intervention
Early diagnosis of visible and invisible
disabilities (for e.g. autism) and early
interventions are quite expensive for an
average Indian family.
P6.8.4 …The other
components of
interventions will include
functional and formal
assessment, appropriate
educational placement,
and preparation of
Individualised Educational
Plans (IEP).
Can there be a database/resource of Counselors/Special
Educators/CWSN resource persons/NGO’s per state/district/village level
that could help a parent of CWSN to reach out early and provide
intervention for their child.
Can the census/people survey have extensive questions on children and
especially CWSN?
Can there be focus on all types of learning (for e.g., visual, aural,
kinesthetic )and not just verbal, logical learning forms
Evaluation/Exa
minations
A common written evaluation systems
defeats the aim of inclusion of CWSN as it is
not friendly for all types of disability.
P19.4.6d Online
assessments:
Various forms of evaluation like objective/multiple choice questions,
oral, online forms of examination could be used for evaluation of CWSN’s
knowledge in classroom subjects.

10. NEP Submission
Submission link:
https://innovate.mygov.in/new-
education-policy-2019/

11. Thank you