August 12, 2019
The Special Educators Forum-India has demanded a separate education
policy for children and people with disabilities on the grounds that the new
draft National Education Policy fails to address the needs of the
community.
Slamming the draft National Education Policy (NEP) for
failing to address the needs of children with disabilities, the
Special Educators’ Form – India (SEFI) has asked the
Centre to frame a separate policy for the community.
The draft NEP has been criticised by many leading disability groups as
regressive and undemocratic. The National Platform for the Rights of
Disabled (NPRD) had previously criticised it for “lacking a
rights-based approach“ and said it “reinforced the traditional method of
viewing disability”.
Not only is the draft oblivious to the United Nations Convention on
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) which India ratified,
it fails to take cognisance of the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities Act, 2016.
According to the Ministry of Human Resources Development’s own data, the
highest number of out of school children, are children with disabilities.
In the year 2014, the figure for this group was 28.07% but the NEP draft
does not lay down any concrete measures to increase the enrolment of
disabled children. On the contrary, the policy proposes to do away with the
25% reservation for marginalised sections provided for in the Right to
Education (RTE) Act. – Kalpagiri Srinu, National Convenor, Special
Educators’ Forum-India
After extensive consultations the SEFI has come up with a set of 25
recommendations. Some of these are:
It’s not just the needs of children with disabilities that the draft NEP
fails to address, points out disability rights activist Shampa
Sengupta. “Intersections of gender, disability, urban poverty or
rural backgrounds bring in different dimensions in the lives of disabled
students. The holistic approach is completely missing from the NEP. Bypassing
the needs and demands of such a huge group of people will not make India a
knowledge superpower which the Ministry claims to aim at”.
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