TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. SPECIAL EDUCATION
2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
3. ROLE OF SINDH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT IN SPECIAL EDUCATION
4. PRESENT SITUATION
5. ROLE OF BUREAU OF CURRICULUM IN THE PROGRESS OF SPECIAL
EDUCATION IN SINDH
(i) Implementation of UNDP assisted Project for Special Education in Sindh
(ii) Establishment of the Pilot Project for the Education and Rehabilitation of
Physically Handicapped Children
(iii) Establishment of Pilot Project for the Education and Rehabilitation of the
Blind at Khairpur
(iv) Implementation of the Scheme of Opening Units for the Handicapped in
District/Sub Divisional Head Quarters in the Province
(v) Development of Diploma Curricula for the Teachers of the Handicapped
(vi) Translation of the Book “Exceptional Children” into Urdu and Sindhi
(Providing Resource Material to the Working Teachers in their Local
(Languages)
(vii) Purchase of Equipment for the Institutions of the Handicapped through
UNICEF
(viii) Recommendations for the Federal Ministry Grant of Rupees One
Million each to the Selected Schools of the Deaf in Sindh.
(ix) Survey of the Handicapped in Hyderabad Region
(x) Federal Government Grant-in-Aid to the Institutions for the Handicapped
through Department of Education
(xi) Deputation of Officers for Foreign Training for Bureau of Curriculum and
Creation of One Post of Program Officer
(xii) Bureau’s General Recommendations for the Enhancement of Special
Education with Possible Issues
6. APPENDIX – ‘A’
1. SPECIAL EDUCATION:
Each child has right to an education. The purposes and goals of education are essentially similar for all children, while the techniques required to help individual children progress may be different. Some children will require substantial modification of the educational program others only minor variations.
Special education is the educational component of rehabilitation. It is needed for all those individuals who experience or are at risk of experiencing significant and continuing difficulties in learning and in adjusting to normal educational opportunities made available to other persons. The term special education has been used to denote those aspects of education that are applied to handicapped and gifted children but are not usually used with the majority of average children. Special is defined by Webster as ‘distinguished by some unusual quality; uncommon; noteworthy; extra ordinary; additional to the regular; extra; utilized or employed for a certain purpose in addition to the ordinary’. Those definitions are certainly applicable to special education, which consists of the modifications of or additions to school practices intended for the ordinary child practices that are unique, uncommon, of unusual quality, and in particular in addition to the organization and instructional procedures used with the majority of children. Children and adults with disabilities comprise a substantial part of the population. The consensus of expert opinion and various research surveys is that 10 to 15 percent of children are identified as disabled and required active intervention and specialized services. Conditions of poverty disease, etc, can result in higher prevalence of disabled children who will require special education intervention.
2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES:
a) Educational resources for handicapped students should be comparable to those available for other students and appropriate to meet the special needs of those children, since these needs have often been long neglected or received unduly low priority.
b) Special education programs in the future will be found in a variety of settings, with some disabled children able to participate in a regular school setting, while others will require very intensive program. There should be as a basic assumption underlying educational and other efforts on behalf of the handicapped, a commitment to integrating the disabled person as fully as possible into the community of non-handicapped persons. History is replete with examples of unnecessary segregation of disabled, and consequent substandard treatment and determination.
(c) Wherever handicapped students are being educated alongside non-handicapped students, those responsible for educational provision must develop a clearly stated plan which specifies the steps to be taken and precise resources which will be required to ensure that the assessed needs of the individual student will be fully met. Placing a handicapped student in a normal setting is only the first step to integration.
(d) Special education services should be:
(i) Individualized: i.e. based on the assessed and agreed needs of the individual students and leading to clearly stated curriculum goals and short term objectives which are regularly revised, and where necessary, revised.
(ii) Locally accessible: i.e. within reasonable traveling distance of the pupils’ home or residence, except in special circumstances where the pupils’ needs cannot be met by these means.
(iii) Comprehensive: i.e. serving all persons special needs irrespective of age or degree of handicap, such that no child of schools age is excluded from educational provision on grounds of severity of handicap or receives educational services significantly inferior to those enjoyed by any other students.
(e) Educational services should be made available to children below school age and the educationally and developmentally oriented. Home visiting services should be available from the first weeks of life.
(f) Educational opportunities should also be provided to adolescents and adults at least on the same scale as to all other sections of the community.
(g) To respond appropriate to these needs there must be primary responsibility placed in a single agency. The educational authorities should have the responsibility for education of all children, without regard to the type or severity of their disability. Comprehensive programming for disabled persons will require a full range of services, health, social welfare, rehabilitation employment placement etc. and this will necessarily involve close cooperation among various governmental community and voluntary agencies. Some agency however, must take the lead and assume the responsibility for the child. The establishment of a national body such as a council or commission for the handicapped to coordinate and promote intersectoral and interdisciplinary planning and development has been as a necessary step especially for countries which are venturing newly in the provision of services for handicapped persons.
(h) While special education programs will necessarily bring additional expenditures and each nation is faced with the fact that it has insufficient funds to meet all its purposes, the costs of managing to provide early identification and education of handicapped children and to subsequently train those children and place them in the work force are much greater. Studies of rehabilitation and education programs across the world document that the economic advantages from such programs in productivity, payment of taxes by handicapped persons and reduced need for welfare assistance and disability stipends, outweigh the costs. Failure to educate and train handicapped persons in proportions equal to the provisions of services for the non-handicapped, because of the problem being perceived as a lower priority, result in later expensive programs to care for the untreated disabled developing nations, as they formulate new approaches to educating children, should be aware of the problem other nations have had in following this approach of giving a low priority to the handicapped. Handicapping conditions are caused by and cause, under development and dependency.
3. ROLE OF SINDH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION:
In Sindh province the education of the handicapped has remained the responsibility of Education Department. Whatever the work has been done in public or private sector in this regard has been supervised by the Department through the Directorate of Bureau of Curriculum and Extension Wing, Sindh Jamshoro. This Directorate along with other manifold responsibilities pertaining to Curriculum Development, Teacher Training, Establishment of Audio-Visual Aids Centers, Production and Procurement of Instructional Material, Organization of Adult Education Program, Women’s Division Programs and Agro-Technical Programs in the entire province, also works for the establishment and enhancement of services for the handicapped children in the province of Sindh.
The Directorate Bureau of Curriculum and Extension Wing, Sindh Jamshoro has Special Education Cell within its establishment at its headquarters at Jamshoro which comprises of one subject Specialist and other assisting officers posted at different places in the province. The concerned subject specialist and the coordinating officers are foreign qualified in the field of Special Education and have been successfully working in this field for the last three years.
4. PRESENT SITUATION:
The present situation of Special Education in the province of Sindh is quite encouraging. The extreme interest of Education Department has proved to be the source of a promising future for this part of Education in Sindh.
At the moment, 26 institutions are working for the cause of the handicapped all over the province. Though the majority of these institutions is at Karachi but the present Government has done a lot to provide the similar services for the handicapped of the interior. Out of these 26 institutions, 20 are run by private sector and the remaining six are Government institutions. The privately managed institutions are registered with Education or Social Welfare Department and are getting Grant-in-Aid from these provincial departments every year.
The provincial Department of Education has been providing annual grant-in-Aid to these institutions regularly and has been supervising them by providing all the instructional help and professional guidance. Federal Ministry has also been providing them Special Grant-in-Aid through the provincial Department of Education.
The list of these 26 institutions is listed below with very brief information. The detailed information regarding the staff, enrolment, facilities etc: in respect of each institution has been given in Part ‘B’ of this repot.
S.# | INSTITUTION | CATEGORY TEACHING | NO. OF TEACHERS | NO. OF STUDENTS |
01. | SCINOSA Day Home and Training Institute, 2/1-ST, Block ‘U’, North Naziambad, Karachi-33. Ms. Alia Samad. Telephone No: 615565 | Mentally Retarded | 05 | 35 |
02. | Municipal Deaf and Dumb School, Near Habib Hotel, Station Road, Hyderabad. | Deaf | 06 | 37 |
03. | Al-Mustaid Home for Handicapped, Near Malir Halt, Kali Tanki, B-Area, Malir, Karachi. | Mentally Retarded, Deaf | 0 | 06 |
04. | DEWA School for the Deaf, III-A-4/5, Nazimabad, Karachi. Phone No. 617845 | Deaf | 12 | 150 |
05. | Adult Blind Center, 36/3, Love Lane, Garden East, Karachi-3. Phone No. 72072. | Blind | 07 | 29 |
06. | The Ida Rieu Schools for the Blind & Deaf, Mutes, Near Old Exhibition, Karachi. Phone No.: 71127. | Deaf, Blind | 14 | 230 |
07. | Day Home Society for the Care of Handicapped, K.M.C. Dental Clinic, Jamshed Quarters, Near Islamia College, Karachi. Clinic Telephone: 415740 | Physically Handicapped | 03 | 45 |
08. | ABSA School for the Deaf, 26-C, National High Way, Korangi Road, Defence Housing Society, Karachi. Phone No. (Residence, Mrs. Minhaj Barna, Principal, 437314) | Deaf | 14 | 85 |
09. | The Association for the Welfare of the Adult Deaf and Dumb, Frere Market, Shahrah-e-Liaquat, Karachi-1. Mr. Mehkri, Phone No. 73571 | Deaf | 07 | 40 Workers |
10. | General Secretary, Association for the Retarded Children, (Day Special School), 20-C, Block-6, P.E.C.H.S., Karachi-29. Dr. Nusrat Awan, School Phone No. 419741, (Res.) 411760. | Mentally Retarded | 06 | 88 |
11. | The Hope Center for Mentally Retarded, 1/E/12/8, Nazimabad, Karachi. | Mentally Retarded | 05 | 50 |
12. | Government School for the Blind Children, Khairpur. Telephone No. 2459. | Blind | 07 | 05 |
13. | Rotary School for the Deaf and Dumb, Eidgah Road, Sukkur. | Deaf | 05 | 36 |
14. | School for the Blind, Near Municipal High School, Shahdadpur Road, Nawabshah. | Blind | 07 | 14 |
15. | Association for Children with Emotional and Learning Problems. 8-B, First South Street, Defence Housing Society, Karachi. Miss. Mehar Hassan, Phone No. 540665. Miss. Munawar Sultana, Telephone No. 530726. J.P.M.C. Karachi. Telephone No. 512551/336. | Mentally Retarded & ESN Children | 04 | 32 |
16. | Darul Sukoon, Kashmir Rd, Op. PIA Complex, Karachi. (Sister Gertrude, Ph #. 411797). | Mentally Retarded | 07 | 125 |
17. | Darul Sukoon Center for Physically Handicapped, Near Quaid’s Mazar, M.A. Jinnah Road, Karachi. | Mentally Retarded and Physically Handicapped | 05 | 45 |
18. | Lemmens House, Karachi. | Physically Handicapped | 07 | 55 |
19. | Society for the Rehabilitation of Cripple Children, PMA House, Annexe Garden Road, Karachi. Telephone No. 433167, 436854. Mrs. Mehar Afroz Habib. | Physically Handicapped | 05 | 50 about |
20. | Pilot Project for the Education and Rehabilitation of Physically Handicapped Children, Hyderabad. | Physically Handicapped, Mentally Retarded & Deaf. | 02 | 55 |
21. | Leprosy Unit, Hussainabad, Hyderabad. | Leprosy Patients | 03 Plus Voluntary Doctors | 40 about |
22. | School for the Deaf, Nawabshah. | Deaf | 02 | 12 |
23. | Unit for the Handicapped Children, Near Government Training School, Sanghar. | Deaf, Physically Handicapped, Slightly MR | 01 | 16 |
24. | Unit for the Handicapped Children, Near Government Training School, Kandhkot. | Deaf, Physically Handicapped, Slightly MR | 01 | 15 |
25. | Unit for the Handicapped Children, Near Government Elementary College of Education, Larkana. | Deaf, Physically Handicapped, Slightly MR | 01 | 18 |
26. | Unit for the Handicapped Children, Near Government Training School, Dadu. | Deaf, Physically Handicapped, Slightly MR | 01 | 12 |
