Education of Differently Abled Children: Government Interventions and Attainments

A rose is still a rose even when it loses a petal. A tree may lose some leaves, but it is still useful. Likewise, a human being can still be useful despite the loss of a physical faculty. Helen Keller says that the most unfortunate person in society is one who has sight but no vision. In order to understand the abilities of a person with disabilities, one needs to have a broad vision of humanistic values. An inclusive society needs the support of parents, teachers, professionals, and other community members.

The term differently abled children have replaced disabled children because each individual is bestowed with some or the other potentialities. But, to understand the concept of disability the definition given by the American Heritage Dictionary of English Language can be examined, as "a disadvantage or deficiency, especially a physical or mental impairment that interferes with or prevents normal achievement in a particular area or something that hinders or incapacitates". The present paper tries to find out the population of disabled people in India in different disability categories. A mention of disability services in India during the pre-independence era, post-independence era, DPEP. It is well-known fact that schools have an important role to play in training differently-abled children and the onus is rested on the government to take up new initiatives. The schemes like SSA have played an important role in the education of this group in the present times. The paper attempts to explore services improvement of integrated education taken up under SSA and attempts to give objectives, scope, intervention, etc. This will be of great help to policymakers and planners as they are working for universalisation of elementary education, which could not be attended without educating this group.