New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that
it is “not practical” to prescribe specific teacher-pupil ratio of special
educators for children with special needs in general schools given the
uncertainty about the number of such students there. The government told a
bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar that the policy is to try and train as
many general teachers so that they are able to cater to the children with
special needs and this is being done on an “active scale”.
Additional Solicitor General
(ASG) Madhavi Divan, appearing for the Ministry of Education, said there are
general schools and special schools which cater to specific need of children
with the special needs.
“In a general school, we feel
that it is not possible and not practical to prescribe specific ratio given the
range of disability, given the uncertainty of how many children in that class
there may be. So therefore, the policy is - try and train as many teachers who
are general teachers to be able to cater to those children with disability.
That is being done on an active scale,” the ASG told the bench, also comprising
justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar.
Additional Solicitor General
Divan said secondly, the policy is also to try and ensure that there are
special educators and that is left to the state government and they can
prescribe how many they want, if they want specifically.
The bench, which was hearing
a plea pertaining to appointment of duly qualified special teachers to impart
quality training and education to children with disability, reserved its order
in the matter. Divan told the bench that nearly 4,000 government post has now
been identified for persons with special needs and therefore, now they are
going to occupy public posts on a much larger scale than before, “Does the
Central government has the relevant empirical data regarding area-wise, how
many are specially-abled children who are required to attend schools,” the
bench asked.
Divan, while arguing that
they don't have area-wise details but have a broad figure, said she will get
better instructions on this issue. The bench observed that in a given area,
there may be more children with special needs for whom the authorities need to
provide infrastructure and schools and for that, there is a need to evolve a “flexible
policy”.
“Suppose, in a given school,
there are 10 students, you can have a ratio of at least one teacher for
addressing the issues of specially-abled. If in a given school, there are 100,
then the same ratio will be 10 teachers for 100 students. That has to be
evolved by you,” the bench said.
Divan said the Ministry of
Education feel it want to leave that call to be taken by the state governments
depending on their regional requirements.
The bench also heard
submissions advanced by other lawyers, including advocate Shoeb Alam who was
appearing for the petitioners. He argued that requirement to fix pupil-teacher
ratio is a statutory duty of the Central government under the provision of the
RTE Act read with relevant rules. He said the Central government has no
authority to delegate the power to fix the ratio to the states.
The Centre had earlier told
the apex court that there is a dedicated component for education of children
with special needs as part of the ‘Samagra Shiksha’ scheme and support is provided
to address their requirements in general schools.
In an additional affidavit
filed in the court, the Centre government had said that several provisions for
children with special needs have been included under the ‘Samagra Shiksha’
scheme and the support has been enhanced from Rs 3,000 per child per annum to
Rs 3,500. It had said as per the data available with unified district
information system for education, there are 22.5 lakh children with special
needs in the country.
“In terms of teachers, as per
data available, 4.33 lakh general teachers have been trained to teach children
with special needs in addition to teaching general children. There are also
28,535 special teachers for children with special needs,” the affidavit had
said. The affidavit was filed in the court which is hearing a matter raising
the issue about obligation of schools, including of the concerned state
government to ensure appointment of duly qualified special teachers to impart
quality training to children with disability in the ratio enunciated in central
enactments as also the schemes propounded by the Central government from time
to time and their service conditions. It had said the ‘Samagra Shiksha’ scheme
is in consonance with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education
Act, 2009.
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