Invisible Minority and Contemporary challenges Education is a vehicle of social mobility.

One of the significant contributions of western education is spirit of inquiry, logical reasoning and voice for intellectual dissent. It has freedom to question our own societal practices, traditions blind beliefs through creative methods. Chandra Lekha, one of the doyens of Indian classical dance went beyond the existing norms and questioned the pre existing societal norms through her art form. According to Bharatas Natyashastra only those individuals who are physically sound are able to excel in performing arts whereas, Syed Sallauddin Pasha director of Ability Unlimited New Delhi based dance reparatory for disabled students keeps emphasizing through our work we are trying to rewrite history. The second question we need to be asking is has the education instilled social consciousness in us? The simple answer is yes. RBI governor Subbaraos pet financial literacy project, aimed at spreading awareness about banking in remote areas. Mumbai based Mirakle Courier started by Druv Lakra an MBA graduate from Harward University, has a strong motto of providing employment to hearing impaired citizens, to earn their livelihood. IIM graduate Sharathbabus Food king is an business initiative to provide food to poor and build hunger free India. These are few examples in support. As mentioned above intellectual dissent is one of the significant contributions of western education. Protestant movement started in Europe is considered as the beginning of civil rights movement by questioning the set of beliefs of church. Taking inspiration from this movement other civil rights movements started across the world. Disability movement was also one such civil rights movement, started by group of differently abled persons claiming for their inclusion. This resulted in developed countries to bring in legislations and policies to accommodate these people in the process of growth and development of the society. Like the rest of the developed countries India too brought in legislations and policies to accommodate differently abled children and citizens. To quote a few examples Mental Health act 1987, The persons with disabilities (EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES, PROTECTION OF RIGHTS AND FULL PARTICIPATION) ACT, 1995 ,and National Trust Act for welfare of persons with autism cerebral palsy mental retardation and multiple disabilities 1999. Our law THE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES, PROTECTION OF RIGHTS AND FULL PARTICIPATION) ACT, 1995 is based on Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Like other developed countries India did not understand the importance of policy research, periodic evaluation of policies and crisis management. This argument can be made with regard to all Indian policies. For example, MNREGA programme, JNURM programme. There is dearth of human resource to evaluate programmes and take decisions at the lower level. We really lack crisis identification and resolution mechanism. To widen our argument and better understanding of this subject, it would be better to draw parallels with other social or apolitical movements. For example dalit movement. By now it is in common wisdom that dalits were

oppressed by other castes. Therefore, to bring equality, state acted through constitutional means introduced reservation. The state also brought in policies for welfare of these people. Since 1931 there was no periodic caste census. This is the prime reason social scientists were unable to conduct any research or policy evaluation. Possible reasons for not holding caste census are innumerable, viz, when the Indian Independence movement was in its peak in the 1940s, fear of exploitation and manipulation of data by the upper caste. There is also regional variation in castes and lack of sensitization. Though many researchers and commissions tried to arrive at general consensus they failed because of cohesiveness in the caste system. This undeniably led to ignorance about their development, number of backward castes and also effected on policy making. Till date neither the academicians nor the policy makers are able to grasp national perspective on the subject. This is also, perhaps, one possible reason for growing inequalities and the reactions we witnessed during Mandal two fiasco during the UPA one regime. Since this is very complex and sensitive issue, it had earlier provoked people resort to agitation both in rural and urban areas. There is constant fear psychosis among intellectuals. Celluloid world plays a vital role on such burning issues. Unfortunately, till recently Indians havent had the chance to watch parallel cinema like other bollywood films. Aarakshan the latest Hindi film has created a tussle between movie buffs and activists. This movie deals with the story of commercialization of Indian education. If the government fails to address the issue sincerely, there is fear of disability movement meeting the same fate in the coming decades. This also means that government needs to listen to civil society groups and take timely action for the empowerment of disabled community. Coming back to the discussion on the issue of disability and inclusive education, like rest of the world, India is also practicing inclusive education, which is a positive step. But our policy makers have failed to realize the full meaning of the concept. According to advocacy for Inclusion Inc of Australian government policy document inclusive education is achieved when the education environment of children who have a disability cannot be distinguished from those of others in the school community. The Australian policy document also points out three crucial points, which are essential parameter for us to tell how far we have succeeded in inclusive education. They are physical social and curricular inclusion. Well these indicators also determine how well have socially downtrodden been able to be part of the mainstream society. Physical inclusion clearly highlights in terms of percentage of differently abled students admitted and retained. Social inclusion highlights important question i.e. to what percentage are the differently abled children able to live with the social group? Third is curricular inclusion. While identifying this we should consider childs requirement on assistive technology. Childs motivation level during exam time needs to be constant. Though these kinds of policy evaluation cant be achieved immediately in India, this should at least be the mission statement for Indian policy makers. Now turning our

attention to socially downtrodden, there were reports about facts being tampered in high school textbooks during NDAs regime .This can be prevented only by selection of people to text book committee from cross section of society. Just two years ago, Human resource ministry passed Right to education law, does anyone remember the point raised by disability activist Javeed Abidi through his protest and ministers reply? The norms and the standards of the Right to Education bill mentions separate toilets for male and female, with playground, where as it fails to mention infrastructure needed for schools to become disabled friendly. This makes it impossible for the disabled to accessibility to schools. Otherwise The right to education will have no meaning for these children, says Javeed Abidi head of National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People(NCPEDP) Kapil Sibals claim was that the Bill provides for barrier-free access, meaning physically challenged children will have access to their neighborhood schools. Counter claim by one of the parents of visually challenged child was What about visually impaired children. Just barrier free access makes little difference to the blind. Keenly observing all these developments, one wonders whether our legislators, ministers really keep important points made in previous legislations, while drafting a new law? THE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES, PROTECTION OF RIGHTS AND FULL PARTICIPATION) ACT, 1995 clearly mentions seven types of disability. They are blindness, low vision, leprosy, loco motor disability, hearing impairment, leprosy cured, mental retardation and mental illness. Then the obvious question is is it not fair to keep all these stake holders in mind while drafting a law? Second question is what message was minister trying to drive home? Was he trying to bring division in the disability movement? Karnataka Parents Association for Mentally Retarded Children(KPARMRC) honorary secretary J P Gadkari says when asked about central and state governments role in addressing the issue of education Central Government has enacted important laws for the benefit of people with disabilities. However, all schemes are not effectively implemented. Governments commitment is questionable. He adds approximately there are about 3000 special educators to teach 1,00,000 persons with intellectual disability and the facilities given to teachers are very poor. Therefore not many takers will choose to excel in this area. However there may be variations in the figures due to non availability of because till date even the 2011 census figures which are yet to be released. But none can deny the fact that special educators in India are not well paid. When this is the scenario, on what grounds can we justify inclusive education? Though it is good and what whole disability sector aspires for. The immediate requirement is to improve the wages of special educators, because they are the ones who come handy in propagating inclusive education. One of the basic lessons that government is expected to learn is to implement wage equality and make this sector more attractive. It is equally challenging to teach differently abled

children. It is even more challenging to identify their strengths and weaknesses, help them to improve their strength and simultaneously pay required attention to weaker areas. There is also greater need to chalk out a plan for bringing different ministries and stake holders on one platform to discuss various issues. Firstly do we have adequate infrastructure and technology to train teachers about various disabilities and how these needs are to be dealt with? How to retain the childrens motivation and channelize their energy and motivation? Like U.S. can we introduce policies to create awareness about assistive technology and universal design to teachers? Design Science and Educational testing services (ETS) two U.S. firms have jointly developed Math type and Math player used for teaching Maths to visually challenged students. In a recent press release published in reuters news wire website Education testing services assessment specialist Lois Frankel says The current technology falls short because it generally does not know how to describe mathematical expression, especially that provides access to their non linear structure. ETS and Design Science will work together to enhance Math Player the tool that voices the math that is encoded in MathML so that it sounds like what students, --particularly those in Algebra I - (non linear) are used to hearing.(In the above quote there are two lines mentioned, because news agency employees are trained to write in least subjectivity, since their news copies are expected to be understood by all, layman to editors) He adds, we also plan to work on a number customization to MathType (software) including a feature to allow teacher and other users to select how mathematical expressions are described. For example they could select whether the machine says four over five or four- fifth. Presently in India whatever assistive technology is being manufactured and sold are meant for minimum general use. We have still not started thinking in that direction. If our Indian ministers and students of professional courses (Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of technology) channelize their expertise to produce products that will help disabled students, which would surely be a movement of celebration. When UPA 2 assumed office HRD minister Kapil Sibal had presented series of educational reforms. He has been partially successful in executing and implementing few of his projects. For example Right to Education policy, scrapping board exams. One of his radical reforms was inviting foreign universities to open campuses in India, to curb brain drain and avail the facility of foreign education to majority. Experts in the industry cautioned him about setting up a commission to decide on scholarships, otherwise only the select few will be benefited from such a move. Secondly first improve the penetration of English education and improve the standard of English, since doubts were raised about standard of curriculum of foreign universities. Adding to this line of arguments, government should think of availability of assistive technology to our differently abled kids. Western countries have already moved onto next level. Their teachers, students, parents are well aware about the usage assistive technology and are now trying to excel in area of universal design. India should immediately emulate them. At least new universities like Azim Premji University, Shrada University, etc have to motivate their students to interdisciplinary research in these areas and also go ahead and put necessary pressure on nodal agencies.

The rights of persons with Disabilities bill 2011 addresses issues raised above. This bill clearly states that schools should be made accessible. All children have equal privilege to seek for help for successful completion of the course and all children have equal rights to access to all school buildings like library and recreational activities. It also mentions every school is expected to maintain students with disability and trained teachers ratio. The school syllabus need to be evaluated from a disability perspective. However difficult it may sound, Inclusive Education is the way forward. India needs to equip itself to the battle ahead not just in principle but in practice. Otherwise India will have to struggle in the area of social justice.