Contributions from: Dr Ishwar Desai, Dr Daryl Greaves, Mrs Usha Desai, & Mrs Sandra Greaves
Abstract
Including Students with Special Needs in Regular Education Programs in India: The Role of the India-Australia Training and Capacity Building Project.
During the past decade there have been significantly greater efforts to include people with disabilities in all aspects of life in India. The passage of the landmark legislation, "The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, in 1996, stressed that both the Central and state governments, as well as local authorities, had a responsibility to "promote the integration of students with disabilities in the normal schools". As a result of these legislative and policy initiatives the Government of India has seen the need to train staff for the implementation of integrated education across India as one of its highest priorities.
The India-Australia Training and Capacity Building Project: Integrated Education for Children with Special Needs was designed to assist the Government of India in training special educators in line with their current policies of integrated education for all.
Our presentation will begin with a brief description of the current policy environment and the impact of that environment on the current efforts to restructure and refine the system for serving students with special needs in India. We will outline some of the pressing issues and challenges that confront policy makers and educators as they grapple with the legislative mandate to provide equal opportunities, full participation and basic human rights to people with disabilities.
We will then outline the key features of the five component training program including the rationale and the expected outcomes of each. Finally an evaluation of the advantages and challenges of implementing such a capacity building project will be presented.
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