Showing posts with label children with Disability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children with Disability. Show all posts

Friday, January 29, 2016

Despite a good progress 34% Indian children with disabilities (6-14 yrs) are still out of school : UN Report


In India, high percentage of kids with disabilities still out of school: UN

United Nations: India has been able to decrease its number of out-of-school children by nearly 16 million between 2000 and 2012, driving the progress in South Asia, but it still has 1.4 million children not attending primary school, a United Nations report said.

The majority, 31 million of the 58 million out-of-school children, were girls. India has 58.81 million girls and 63.71 million boys of primary school age. As of 2011, 1.4 million children of primary school age did not go to school in India, with 18 percent girls out of school and 14 percent boys.

The report said that while India has made significant improvement in primary education enrolment, the figures for children with disabilities are staggering. Out of 2.9 million children with disabilities in India, 990,000 children aged 6 to 14 years (34 percent) are out of school.

The percentages are even higher among children with intellectual disabilities (48 percent), speech impairments (36 percent) and multiple disabilities (59 percent).

"India has made tremendous efforts to make its education system more inclusive. Under the Right to Education Act, all children have the right to go to school...To accommodate a greater number of children with disabilities, further progress is needed," it said.

The biggest decrease in the number of out-of-school children was seen in South Asia, where their numbers fell by 23 million between 2000 and 2012, according to a new joint report 'Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All: Findings from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children was produced by UNESCO and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF)'.

Much of the global progress since 2000 in decreasing the number of out-of-school children has been driven by a small number of countries, with India alone decreasing its number of out-of-school children by nearly 16 million between 2000 and 2011.

In relative terms, 42 countries were able to more than halve their numbers of primary out-of-school children between 2000 and 2012, including Algeria, Burundi, Cambodia, Ghana, India, Iran, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Viet Nam, Yemen and Zambia.

However, despite such impressive progress in many countries, about nine percent of all children of primary school age worldwide, which accounts for eight percent of all boys and 10 percent of all girls, were still out of school in 2012.

The other countries with more than half a million out-of-school children include Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sudan. India had 14 percent of children in the 7-14 years age category involved in child labour.

The report credited initiatives such as abolition of school fees, cash transfer programmes and school feeding programmes in ensuring more children attend and stay in school.

The largest school feeding was implemented in India with 120 million school children benefiting by 2006 and has been credited with a significant positive effect on both school enrolment and attendance rates.

The report further said that one in five adolescents worldwide is not in school, which means that some 63 million young people between the ages of 12 and 15 are denied their right to an education, mainly because they are marginalized and poor, the joint UN agency report said as pressure mounts to include universal secondary education in the post-2015 global development agenda.

"This report serves as wake-up call to mobilize the resources needed to guarantee basic education for every child, once and for all," UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said.

The data found that as children get older, the risk that they will never start school or will drop out increases. One in ten children of primary school age is out of school compared to one in five adolescents. The study also found that in total, 121 million children and adolescents have either never started school or dropped out despite the international community's promise to achieve Education for All by 2015.

The report added that "business as usual" has not worked and there has been almost no progress in reducing the number of adolescents out of school since 2007. Children living in conflict, child labourers and those facing discrimination are most affected. And without major shifts in policies and resources, previous education gains may erode.

"If current trends continue, 25 million children, 15 million girls and 10 million boys, are likely to never set foot inside a classroom," it said. For a concrete policy shift, the study calls on governments to provide robust information on marginalised children.

Source: PTI


Thursday, March 6, 2014

Goa Board to offer Custom Syllabus for Students with Disabilities


Gauree Malkarnekar,TNN | Mar 6, 2014, 02.11 AM IST

PANAJI: Children with special needs will now have their syllabus from Class IX to XII modified to their individual needs if they find it difficult to cope with the curriculum in force. The academic council of the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has approved an improvised scheme for special children to be implemented for 2014-15.

Under the modified scheme, once a child is certified for a disability, the institution along with the child, will have to decide if he or she is capable of taking up one of the existing courses of study offered by the board or if a new course based on the primary structure of the syllabus will have to be framed by bodies of the board to meet the individual student's need.

"If a particular student is unable to sit in the classroom because of his or her disability or there are other such issues, a separate syllabus can be framed under the new scheme to meet the child's individual needs. The benefits of this revised scheme have now also been extended to higher secondary students," Goa Board chairperson Jose Remedios Rebello said.

The Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) will include a description of the individualized curriculum for academics and skills, specific objectives, teaching learning strategies and assessment procedures.

The revised Goa Board scheme lays more stress on assimilating children with special needs with regular school students.

"High school teachers of regular schools are already being trained under the Central government's Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) to sensitize them to recognize the needs of special children in a regular class. Goa Board's modified scheme will require regular teacher training programmes to include at least one module on types and characteristics of disabilities and observation of these characteristics in students. Training programmes will be organized for existing teachers," Rebello said.

The revised scheme requires that special children too be assessed through continuous evaluation and the format for it will be drawn by the board of studies.

The board will also certify special children answering the Class X and XII public exams differently stating their level of disability, the subjects selected, the mode of assessment and the level of performance (preferably through grading).

Students with disabilities will be provided with some general concessions like decreasing their writing load by setting objective type questions, allowing verbal responses for children with writing difficulties, overlooking directional mistakes in maps in geography, awarding marks for the method employed in mathematics, pardoning the errors in calculation arising out of writing numbers in the wrong order, evaluating the content of answer rather than the syntax or structure and spelling errors and allowing point-form writing etc.


Friday, March 19, 2010

Child Care Leave for Mothers of children with disabilities made more friendly

Dear Friends,

Some good news for the Government Employee Mothers with disabled children. The child care leave rules have been relaxed. Earlier the leave rules permitted women employees to avail CCL of 730 days (2 years) in their entire service up to two children till their  children were 18 years which is now extended to 22 years of age for the mothers of children with disability.

For those of you wanting to preserve a copy of the DoPT Memo  No.13018/6/2009-Estt.(L) dated 03rd March 2010, click the link to download the same. Download earlier leave Rule dated 29 September 2008 here. 
However, I have a problem with the process of such revision in the Rules even if the revision is progressive. Often the rules are relaxed on adhoc basis on reciept of some representation without thinking in larger context. Such progressive decisions could benefit many more than just mothers of children with disability up to 22 years of age!

I raise this point because I find there are several others who deserve & would greately benefit from such a progressive provison. Our experience tells us that mothers continue to care for their disabled children even after 22 years of age, also often the need of care becomes crucial if there is a member with major support needs or with mental illness in the family. And its not mother alone, it could be father, brother, sister & spouse too!

Therefore, in such scenario, it would be prudent and more justified to extend this to all such stakeholders. Also the age bar of 22 years would become redundant for other disabilities where the member may be needing life long support. That is why it is always important and logical to involve stakeholders and organisations working on the subject or representing the interests of stakeholders to come to a reasonable and benefit-all amendment in the existing rules. Organisations of parents, families with disabled members or those specialising on the support networks might have additional views on this which could be heard by the Government.

We hope the DoPT or any other similarly placed organisation would  consider this while taking such progressive decisions.

regards
Subhash C. Vashishth

To read the news article from source click here: 
Leave Rules Relaxed for Mothers of Disabled Children

New Delhi: The government has relaxed the age restriction on childcare  leave (CCL) given to women employees with disabled children. In ordinary circumstances, women can avail the special two-year CCL till their children are 18. After the extension, mothers of disabled children can  avail the leave till their children are 22.

The department of personnel and training (DoPT) passed the order after getting requests from mothers that the age restriction be relaxed for disabled and mentally-challenged children. "We consulted the finance ministry and decided to permit CCL to women with disabled children till they are 22," a DoPT circular said.

Mothers of children with a minimum disability of 40% are entitled to this, but only if the child is dependent on her. Disabilities included mental retardation,locomotor/orthopaedic disability, visual disability, speech and hearing disability.

The government had announced the childcare leave in the Sixth Pay Commission. The leave is for the entire service period and can be taken whenever the employee thinks fit, especially when the child is sick or is appearing for an exam.

During the leave period, the employee is entitled to get salary equal to what she was getting before going on leave. Besides, the Centre gives extra benefits to disabled women. For two years, they are paid Rs1,000 over and above their gross salary as childcare allowance.