People with Disabilities in India: From Commitment to Outcomes

well beyond the needs of CWD alone. Nonetheless, difficulties with access to transport and/or
simply difficult personal access may be much more pronounced for certain CWD. The UP and
TN survey asked about access to public transport, and over 60 percent of PWD respondents
reported difficult or no access to public transport due to their disability.
4.53. (vi) Accessible curriculum: 116 To date there remains major differences in
curriculum between special and regular schools. The current mode of delivery of such services in
India is categorized into two sets. The first is the skills relating to what is called “Plus
Curriculum” in special needs education curriculum. It is called Plus Curriculum as it is a specific
curriculum for CWD intended to increase their access to the learning environment (for example,
Braille, orientation and mobility for children with blindness, use of low vision aids and reading
large print by children with low vision sight, speech, language and communication skills by deaf
children, communication skills by children with cerebral palsy). They have to learn additional
skills for fully participating in classroom learning activities and require additional time.
4.54. The other set of questions deal with adjustment of general curriculum to diverse
educational needs arising out of disability, and use of additional learning resources and classroom
management to improve access of all children in learning activities. The curriculum options for
CWD in general curriculum/school settings are several:
• follow the same curriculum as others, in principle maintaining equity in curriculum access.
While in principle this is straightforward, this option still requires development of accessible
formats of the general curriculum for children with specific disabilities (e.g. Braille books;
visual learning materials for hearing impaired and autistic children). For the most part, such
format adjustments have not been made on any large scale in the public system. 117
• adjustment or/and modification to special needs in areas which cannot be accessed despite
assistive aids and additional learning material and aids
• substitution of curriculum content area by alternative content area
• deletion of specific curricular content area since it is not possible provide learning to a child
with a particular disability.
4.55. There appears to be significant diversity between states in the approaches taken. For
example, field work in Gujarat revealed all four approaches being used. In principle, once a child
has been assessed with a disability, an individualized education plan (IEP) is supposed to be
prepared for the child. An IEP is a statement that: (i) describes how the child’s disabilities affect
his or her involvement with and progress in the general curriculum; (ii) sets measurable goals to
enable a child to be involved with and progress in the general curriculum, and (iii) outlines the
services, program modifications, and supports necessary for the child to be involved with and
progress in the general curriculum. Effectively designed and implemented IEPs are a challenging
task even in well-resourced and high capacity countries, and will remain a challenge in much of
India. However, experience even in poor states such as Orissa shows that through collaborations
between the government and NGO sectors gradual results are possible. Partnerships under SSA
in 12 Orissa districts have resulted in around 10 percent of CWD in the pilot districts having IEPs
developed under DPEP.
116 The definition of curriculum in this section includes: (i) what is learned and what is taught (context); (ii)
how it is delivered (teaching-learning methods); (iii) how it is assessed (exams, for example); and (iv) the
resources used (e.g., learning materials used to deliver and support teaching and learning).
117 Such format adjustments may often be beneficial for the learning of children without disabilities also in
terms of making the material being taught more accessible.
-78-