Special Needs Schools
Special education schools cater to children with learning disabilities and intellectual disabilities. These schools address the individual differences between the children and work with them as needed. Working and learning programs for each child are created by the faculty, and students are cared for by nursing staff as well as the teachers. Special schools have shown to improve learning in many special-needs children and have provided job opportunities fit for these children. Special needs schools, however, face a lot of problems in India. Most of these schools are run by NGOs and are in a dire need of funding. The government initiatives taken up regarding education of special needs children are weak and underfunded. Since Education falls in the State List, it is up to the state government to allocate funds to these schools in order for them to be functional.
The Stats
Currently, India has over 27 million people with special needs, which comes to about 2% of the population. Out of this, about 4.5 million are children between the ages of 10–19. Census of 2011 showed that only 61% of these children attended educational institutions, let alone special needs schools. Dropout rates of special-needs children are also quite high. Recent statistics show that students with disabilities are 30% more likely to drop out of schools. Those who do drop out are 50% more likely to remain unemployed, and those who graduate school are 80% less likely to opt for higher education. These stats may not even fully represent the population, as a lot of disabled children are not diagnosed due to lack of awareness. The taboo nature of mental health in India, and a lack of awareness has caused these rates to rise through the years. This is prevalent in rural as well as urban areas, with only about 10% of patients being diagnosed and treated in India. This rate is abysmally low and is a serious cause for concern.
Need for Mental Health Professionals
The dire need for psychiatrists and psychologists is also a problem. India has 3 psychiatrists for every 1 million people, which is one of the lowest numbers in developing countries. Also, Government medical camps do not include mental health professionals, which means that students from these schools would go undiagnosed, simply because they are unaware of the possibility of having mental health disorders. The RTE also does not define special-needs children sufficiently and categorises them under ‘Disadvantaged’ group. Only recently, with the introduction of the Mental Health Care Bill in 2016 has the government began to show the required attention and concern for the special-needs children. The bill lets any individual obtain free, government-funded treatment for mental health disorders.
Learning disorders
Special-needs children have been positively impacted by learning through Augmented reality and Digital learning. Studies have time and again showed that special-needs children tend to perform much better in school, and are able to retain information for longer in a comprehensible manner when alternate learning is incorporated. This is because the neural channels of these children that are responsible for meaning-making and learning are wired differently. Some children with disabilities tend to perform when a theoretical concept is applied practically. In some cases, visual stimuli is more effective than auditory stimuli. Hence, the mode of learning must be decided on a case-to-case basis by teachers and trained mental health professionals. A standardised learning system can simply not work in these cases simply because of the differences in the spectrums of mental health disorders. For instance, dyslexia, a learning disorder is caused by damage to the occipital and temporal lobe. It is a reading disorder which makes it difficult for children to comprehend letters. There is also dysgraphia, where children are unable to write but can read perfectly. Programs for all of these differences, and no standardised program may work. Parents also need to be educated on this in order to ensure that the number of incidences reduces. Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and other mental health disorders are caused by prenatal smoking and drinking, and educating both parents and children is essential for the overall human development of the country.
Since the group of special-needs children consists of a large chunk of the Indian children’s population, educating them and ensuring that they are functional members of society is beneficial both economically and for the human development of the country. Accessibility is also another issue. Since most of the mental health clinics and hospitals are located in urban areas, rural India is completely shut off from these services. For this reason, mental health disorders for the longest time, and even now in some places, are considered to be works of “bad spirits”. Education hence becomes very important in removing the stigma attached to mental health disorders. Information about the accessibility of resources and awareness must also be included in the schools’ curriculum in order to ensure that knowledge of mental diseases is disseminated amongst the youth of the country.
Conclusion
Awareness camps and classes specifically tailored for parents is a must, as educating them has shown to positively correlate with the lifting of the taboo associated with mental health disorders. Resources like mental hospitals and clinics must also be incorporated, and immediate access must be provided to the families. Another thing that must be included in routine mental health checks by psychiatrists, especially in schools as children are prone to develop or have learning disorders. Autism Spectrum Disorders and Down’s Syndrome show physical signs, therefore, they are easy to identify. Students must be made aware of these conditions so as to effectively identify, diagnose and treat children suffering from these disorders.
Written by: Akanksh Sharma, TEGS
