Students with Learning Disabilities As per Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) 2015-16, 1.65 lakh children with learning disabilities are enrolled at primary level of schooling under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). At the secondary and senior secondary level of schooling under the scheme of Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage, a total of 2.37 lakh children with special needs (CWSN) are enrolled, out of which 14918 children are with learning disabilities as per UDISE 2015-16. Under the SSA, regular parental counselling programmes are conducted for parents of CWSN including those of learning disabilities. Besides, the resource persons engaged at the Block Resource Centres exclusively for CWSN under SSA conduct home visits to counsel parents. States like Kerala and Odisha do exclusive counselling programmes for parents of CWSNs. Under the SSA, 18174 resource persons have specifically been engaged for children with special needs. These resource persons are technically qualified to teach CWSN. They provide remedial education to children with specific learning disability. Under SSA, 70281 general teachers were given training on learning disabilities during 2015-16. SSA promotes inclusion of CWSN in neighbourhood schools through their early identification, educational placement, provision of aids and appliances and other resource support services, teacher training, parental training, community mobilisation, curricular adaptations, removal of architectural barriers, as well as residential, non residential or even home based education, as per their specific requirements. The National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT) has developed exemplar material on curricular adaptations, inclusive teaching and evaluation of children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. This handbook, meant for primary and upper primary level teachers, covers all disabilities, including cognitive and intellectual disabilities and has been disseminated to all States and UTs. This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Shri Upendra Kushwaha today in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question.
