The HRD Ministry has said that 2.84 lakh children in the age group 6-14 years with learning disabilities are enrolled in schools as per Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) 2013-14.
These constitute 0.14 percent of the total enrolment at the elementary level.
Under SSA, regular parental counselling programmes are conducted for parents of children with special needs (CWSNs) including those of learning disabilities.
Against the target of training of 3.56 lakh parents of CWSN in 2014-15, 4.96 lakh parents have been given training. Besides, the resource persons engaged at the Block Resource Centres (BRC) exclusively for CWSNs under SSA also conduct home visits to counsel parents. States like Kerala and Odisha do exclusive counselling programmes for parents of CWSNs.
Under SSA, 20910 resource persons have specifically been engaged for children with special needs. These resource persons are technically qualified to teach CWSNs. They provide remedial education to children with specific learning disability.
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SSA promotes inclusion in schools for children with special needs (CWSN) 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 how to adopt flexibility in evaluation for children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms.
This handbook, meant for primary level teachers, covers all disabilities, including cognitive and intellectual disabilities, has been disseminated to States/UTs. Media campaigns of SSA show inclusion of CWSNs in schools. In the current year, another book on curricular adaptations for upper primary level has been prepared.
This information was given by the Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question.
