Inclusive Education of Children with Disabilities

Worldwide there is a conscious shift away from special schooling to mainstream schooling of education for children with disabilities. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India is taking various initiatives with the objective of making all the schools in the county disabled-friendly. In this context the Central CBSE Board of Secondary Education would like to provide the following guidelines to all its affiliated schools for achieving this worthy objective: 1. Disabled students should have barrier-free access to all the educational facilities and services in the school including hostels, libraries, laboratories and buildings. 2. Special attention may be given for the availability of appropriate study material for the disabled. Talking Text Books, Reading Machines and Computer with speech software may be progressively introduced and made available for the use of the disabled. 3. Steps may be taken to provide adequate number of Braille books in the school library. 4. Other support services like sign language interpreters, transcription services and loop induction system may also be progressively provided for the hearing handicapped students. 5. Special attention may be paid to provide adequate and appropriate transportation facilities to the disabled students. 6. Teachers may also be sensitized to the requirements of children with special needs by organizing service training programmes in inclusive education at the elementary and secondary level. The CBSE Board would appreciate the cooperation of schools in implementation of the above.