NEW DELHI: Ten-year-old Usha Shukla attends school everyday but still failed in her examinations. It's not that she does not study, but she suffers from a hearing disability and she cannot cope with the regular lessons taught in the government run-school. Many children like Usha, suffering from various mental and physical disabilities, have now a reason to rejoice with Delhi High Court on Wednesday directing the Delhi Government to provide special educators for them.

Taking a serious note of absence of special teachers for disabled students in government schools, a division bench comprising chief justice Ajit Prakash Shah and justice Manmohan asked the state government to appoint two such specialists in each of 3,000 state-run schools in the capital. The court also asked the government to ensure that these educators get all the facilities including salaries at par with the general teachers. The court's order came on a PIL filed by Social Jurist, an NGO through counsel Ashok Aggarwal, seeking a direction to the NCT government as well as the civic agencies not to deprive disabled children of their fundamental right to have education by appointing adequate number of specially trained teachers for them.
"It's not fair at all. Why these students are being suppressed by not being provided with basic facilities?,'' the court asked while directing the state government to ensure the teachers get every necessary equipments. The order is to be implemented in schools run by the Delhi government, MCD and NDMC.

The court also came down heavily on the state government for not admitting students on the basis of their disability. Counsel Aggarwal told the court that one of the disabled kids was denied admission by a state-run school as the principal said they did not have the facility for the child. "This is clearly contrary to our order dated February 19, 2009. It is made clear that no disabled child should be denied admission in school run by Delhi government,'' the bench said.

The government appointed committee's report on mapping the disabled students across the city was also criticized by the court, which pulled up the committee for doing it in an improper way. "Mapping is not done in schools. It is equally important and requires an extensive campaign having 200-300 people who will get the fair statistics,'' the bench said while directing the government to conduct door-to-door campaign to list the disabled students. In this regard, the court also directed the secretary, directorate of education, Rakesh Mohan, to appear before it for September 23.

According to counsel Aggarwal, out of two lakh disabled children, only 15000 are in private schools. "The future of the remaining children hangs lose with no facility being provided to them," he said.

source: TOI