“There is a dearth of special educators”

Sulata Ajith discusses the importance of early intervention and individualized education for differently-abled children at Sankalp Trust.

There is a need to go beyond the curriculum as every differently-abled child will show improvement, and so the teachers can’t be rigid about it, said Sulata Ajith, founder-director, Sankalp Trust.

Addressing the media here on Monday, she said that there was a need for early identification programmes as children with specific learning disability appear normal otherwise and with average/ below average IQ but without age-appropriate academic skills, showing a deficit of two years or more. “They will require appropriate intervention,” she added.

The school is celebrating their silver jubilee year and hosting a conference ‘Learn 2024’ on inclusion and empowerment of neuro-diverse children.

Speaking about their two schools – Sankalp The Open School and Sankalp The learning Centre and Special Needs School – principal of the Learning Centre and Special Needs School Evelyn John said, “The school offers Class 10 and 12 academic stream training accredited through National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) along with vocational courses, such as data entry, sewing, weaving among others, which offer the individuals a chance at independency.”

Pointing out that there is a dearth of special educators in the field, especially those in specific learning disability, Ms. Ajith said, “Sankalp now offers a Diploma in Special Education (intellectual and developmental disabilities), a two-year programme. In our schools, we strictly follow the teacher-student ratio of 1:8 set by the Union government. However, it is becoming difficult to recruit qualified special educators as there is a shortage of such teachers graduating.”