“Provide disabled–friendly education facilities” CBSE urge schools

New Delhi – The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has urged the schools to make their buildings not just student friendly, but go a step beyond by providing all necessary disabled–friendly education facilities to make integrated education a reality.

The circular issued by the CBSE has for the first time drawn the attention to the much important issue of integrated education. The educational body has directed all schools to sensitize their teachers about the physically–challenged students as well as facilitate these students with easy access to every part of the school buildings, including hostels, libraries, laboratories.

In the wake of a "conscious shift being made from mainstream schooling of education for children with disabilities'' and efforts from the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development to make all schools across the country disabled–friendly, the circular has given schools guidelines to do the needful.

CBSE has further asked them to give "special attention'' to the availability of appropriate study material for the disabled, including talking textbooks, reading machines and computers with speech software that can be easily made available for the use by disabled students.

The Board has also urged schools to ensure the availability of Braille books in their libraries since its availability is rare in most schools.

The guidelines have also urged students to provide other support services like sign language interpreters, transcription services and loop induction system to help students with a hearing impairment.

Transportation being one of the key problems faced by students with disability, the guidelines have also urged schools to ensure "adequate and appropriate'' transport facilities to help students with special needs.