UNESCO report on Disabilities in India – Suggest changes in RTE 06/07/2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: UNESCO
UNESCO REPORT ON DISABILITIES IN INDIA – SUGGEST CHANGES IN RTE
For: Preliminary & Mains
Topics covered: Findings of UNESCO on disabilities in India, Educational status of disabled children, suggestions on Right to Education
News Flash
UNESCO report on Disabilities in India shows the number of children with disabilities enrolled in school drops significantly with each successive level of schooling.
- A report by UNESCO and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences recommends structural, funding and attitudinal changes.
- These changes will ensure that no child is left out of the right to education.
UNESCO report on Disabilities in India: Findings
- There are more than 78 lakh children with disabilities in the country between 5-19 years (as per the 2011 census).
- Only 61% of them were attending an educational institution.
- About 12% had dropped out, while 27% had never been to school at all.
- More than one in four children with disabilities have never attended any educational institution.
- Three-fourths of five-year-olds with disabilities are not in school.
- There are fewer girls with disabilities in school than boys.
- In 2014-15, there were more than 15 lakh children with disabilities in primary school.
- Two years later, enrolment had dropped by more than two lakh.
- At the higher secondary school level, there were less than 63,000 such children in 2016-17.
- Only 20% of children with visual and hearing impairments had never been in school.
- Children with multiple disabilities or mental illnesses, that figure rose to more than 50%.
- Amendments to the RTE Act, 2009 to make it align with the Right of Persons With Disabilities Act, 2016 are among the major recommendations of the report.
Home-based Education
- In many parts of rural India, if a parent opts for home-based education, the child may not be getting an education at all.
- Experts say the situation is worse than what the statistics show.
- The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan teacher is supposed to visit and check.
Way forward
The RTE mandates enrolment, but not the provision of resources needed for the actual education of a child with disabilities.
Amend the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 to make it align with the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
Source: The Hindu
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