CBSE Schools to Hire Special Educators

In a first of its kind move, the Central Board of Secondary Education has passed a regulation making it compulsory for its CBSE affiliated schools to endorse ‘Inclusive Education’ by appointing Special Educators (SEs), for adapting children with learning disabilities into the schools.

This was informed to all schools by a special circular issued by the Deputy Secretary for affiliated schools on June 17. The circular stated that it has observed schools not obeying the provision of appointing special educators, as required by the CBSE Board.

The Management and Head of the CBSE Board were issued strict notices to follow the provision by making arrangements for appointing SEs immediately. The state of Madhya Pradesh has the worst rate of enrolment of children with special needs (CWSN), as per the statistics drawn up by the HRD Ministry Unified-District Information System for Education (U-DISE), 2015-16.

With a national average for CWSN students being enrolled standing at 1.3% in primary schools, and 1.18% in upper primary schools, the 0.5% rate of enrolment of special needs students in the state of MP is very dismal indeed.

CWSN covers the categories of students diagnosed with visual impairment, cerebral palsy, hearing problems and students diagnosed with multiple disabilities.

Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, which is the national education initiative to achieve the Universal Elementary Education Policy, stated that a provision should be made for all CWSN in regular schools, by empowering them with support systems.