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Fair Equality of Opportunity

Context: To motivate all children to meaningfully participate in all indoor and outdoor activities without barriers or limitations, the school ecosystem has to be made safe, accessible, and reliable.

Children with Disability

• A UNESCO 2019 report mentioned that CWD comprise 1.7% of the total child population in India (Census 2011).
• According the report they are faced with physical, institutional, socioeconomic and communication barriers from an early age.
• More than 70% of five-year-olds with disabilities in India have never attended any educational institution.
• Many CWD also tend to drop out of school as they grow older.

Barriers to accessibility

• Several barriers impede the participation of CWD in accessing educational opportunities such as: –
  • Inaccessible school buses
  • Inaccessible facilities in schools (drinking water facilities, canteens and toilets)
  • Inappropriate infrastructure in classrooms (uncomfortable seating, slippery flooring and low illumination).
  • Misinformed attitudes and perceptions among parents, teachers, staff, and communities further influences the child’s emotional development.
  • The lack of teaching and learning practices that integrate inclusive technologies and digital equipment to engage the child, such as assistive devices.
  • At training programmes conducted by UN-Habitat India and IIT Kharagpur recently, school teachers and special educators said that accessible infrastructure within schools, such as ramps or tactile paths, are either in deficit or have not been constructed utilizing suitable materials.

Steps towards Inclusivity

• Article 21A of the Constitution and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 outline the fundamental right to education and the right to have free and compulsory education for children aged 6-14 years.
• The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which adopted a ‘zero rejection policy’, emphasizes that “every child with special needs, irrespective of the kind, category and degree of disability, is provided meaningful and quality education.
• India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Aligning with this commitment, the government launched the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) in 2015.
  • An important pillar of this campaign is accessibility to built environment.
  • The government has also been supportive of the principle of Leave No One Behind (LNOB), which is the central, transformative promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Way Foward

• Developing inclusive and accessible schools will not only challenge perceptions about CWD, and the associated discrimination, but also help in actualizing the zero-rejection policy in schools.
• A multi-pronged participatory approach towards providing an enabling environment for the empowerment of future citizens is needed to ensure that stakeholders in the school ecosystem collectively work towards promoting accessibility and inclusion in schools.
• This includes awareness and sensitization programmes for children, parents, and caregivers; training trainers for upskilling of school faculty and special educators and providing access to updated teaching toolkits and materials; technical training for local government departments; and a co-learning platform for knowledge-sharing between all.
• Five principles of equitability, usability and durability, affordability, cultural adaptability, and aesthetic appeal should be embedded from the planning to implementation to evaluation stages of providing infrastructure services in schools.