Education Of Children With Disabilities

• CWDs constitute 1.7% of the total child population of India.
• Around 75% of CWDs of under 5 years age and 25% between 5-19 years of age do not go to any educational institution and their enrollment drops significantly with each successive level of schooling.
• Glaring gender discrimination against girl child with disabilities in school education.
• High preference for open education among CWDs.
• Poor schools attendance, mental illnesses and mental retardation among children with multiple disabilities

• Significant gaps remain in spite of multiple government schemes and programs have brought large numbers of children with disabilities into schools.
• High school dropout rate for CWDs (12%).
• 1/4^th of CWDs never attended any educational institution.

• Alignment of the RTE Act (Right to Education Act) with the RPWD Act (The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016) by including specific concerns for education of such children.
• Expansion of coverage to include all CWDs.
• Credible data to usher effective planning for CWDs.
• Coordination and effective convergence of all education programmes of CWDs.
• Increase in financial allocation in education budgets to meet the learning needs of CWDs.
• Use of information technology for the education of CWDs.
• Requisite training of teachers to promote diverse learning for CWDs.
• Overcome stereotypes and build positive dispositions towards CWDs, both in the classroom and beyond.

Although with a range of programmes and schemes the enrolment rates of CWDs are increasing in schools but further measures are needed to ensure quality education for every child to achieve the goals and targets of agenda 2030 and more specifically Sustainable Development Goal 4.