Education for Children with Disabilities: The Parent Perspective

Enable Education conducted a webinar on 14th of July 2024. It was held on Google meet.

making it accessible to a wider audience, especially people with disabilities. The panelist include two speakers:

1. Venu Malik: Mother, Big 4 professional , Parent advocate

2. Priyanka Saini: Dietician, Mother

The event was also attended by Mr. Samarth Pathak, Communications and Advocacy lead (South Asia) and Regional focal point (Education and youth)-UNODC

The session was conducted to discuss the challenges faced by the parents of children with disabilities in schools. It also discussed the importance of infrastructure and change in attitudes towards children with disabilities, to help them thrive in school.

Mrs. Venu Malik shared her experience of changing three schools for her son, and said ,“There was never a formal ‘NO’ but they used not having special educators as an excuse.” She shared that the pros of inclusive education definitely outweigh the cons that they were opportunities to look into to make education more inclusive for children with disabilities.  For her, it was worth the struggle.

Mrs. Priyanka Saini said that Peers are always helpful, but teachers tell them to not help unless they are told by her to do so. She also mentioned that there are many schools who ignore the requirements of disabled children,  special educators are overworked & teachers are overburdened.

Mr. Samarth Pathak, talked about barriers such as   physical infrastructure and the attitudinal barriers that are there against children with disabilities.  He also mentioned that schools are meant to be inclusive, for all. He shared that the divide begins with the segregation between ‘special’ schools and ‘normal’ schools.

Ms Aarushi Gambhir said that children are born with a clean slate, free from biases against anyone yet adults are the ones who stigmatize disability for them.

All four of them agreed to the point of getting biased from the elders in the society.Together , all of them shared their opinions and discussed the need of having a reservation for disabled people in the panel to make the decision for the disabled children in the schools. Ms Aarushi Gambhir felt that if there will be the participation of disabled people in the panel then only required decisions will be taken at the right time. Mr. Samarth Pathak and others agreed to her point.

The webinar provided a comprehensive platform to discuss the multifaceted challenges faced by the parents of disabled children. The discussion highlighted the requirement of building physical infrastructure as well as creating social inclusion for children with disabilities. The need to shift  the mindset towards inclusion was also highlighted. Advancing the access to technology as a way to improve educational opportunities and output was also touched upon.