Bulgarian Journal of Science and Education Policy (Aug 2016)
Problems of Children with Special Needs (CWSNs) in Assessing the Education: Role of Barrier Free Environment - A Case Study of India
Abstract
Education is envisaged as an important tool for the socio-economic and cultural development of an individual and acts as a catalyst for the pace of the development of the country. Keeping this in view, the Government of India has launched several programmes for the promotion of the education among the children as well as adults in the country. But, due to the malnutrition, superstitions, fluoride in the water, diseases like polio etc., natural calamities and other adverse conditions some children are becoming disabled. The place of the differently abled in the Indian society is lower when compared with the normal children as there is a notion that their disability is due to curse for the sins in the previous birth etc. and they were deprived in all spheres of life including education. To mainstream them on par with the normal population and to make them as partners of the pace of development of the country, the Government of India from time to time launched several programmes and started special schools. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is one of the programme implemented to create barrier free environment in the school and to promote inclusive education for the children with special needs (CWSN) as one of the components. The present study was taken up in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India to find out the extent of accessibility of education to the CWSNs in normal schools. The study covered a sample of CWSNs (300), teachers (90), parents (150), heads of the schools (30), home based teachers (30) and tried to identify the problems of the CWSNs in accessing the education, problems of the teachers in tackling with the children, parents opinions towards the efforts of the schools in making education to be accessible to their CSWN.
