Disadvantaged children in rural India can benefit most from more enlightened, inclusive teaching. This project aims at empowering 125 school teachers in the poorest areas with an intensive, inspiring program. It consists of a 5-day workshop and powerful school-based support sessions using proven methods to enable teachers to bring in the last child into engaged learning. Every teacher impacts on average over 400 children in his/ her career, so the program has potential to impact 50,000 children.
As per the official records, out of the 135301 children identified as children with special needs in Karnataka, 121153 are enrolled in schools and 14148 are given homeschooling. This makes Karnataka one of the 8 States in India that is 100% in compliance with the Policy of Universal Primary Education. However, ground data suggest that 70% of our regular school teachers have"neither received training in special education nor have any experience teaching students with disabilities."
It has long been established that the key issue with inclusive education in India is the gap in teacher ability to integrate children with special needs nto mainstream classrooms. Teachers require training to address this issue. The Inclusive Teacher Project will equip 125 teachers from government schools with the skills to be more sensitive to and proactively engage with children having special needs.
The Inclusive Teacher Project will enable these 125 teachers from Government schools to ensure that all children despite their differences, receive the opportunity of being and equal part of the same classroom and in the process get the learning opportunity of being exposed to the curriculum to their optimal potential. Since a teacher impacts over 400 children over her/ his career, this programme has a potential impact of 50,000 disadvantaged children.
