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This research study aims to throw light on the educational status of children with disabilities and the various barriers they and their families face within school or in the process to get into the school. One Hundred and Fifty (150) children and their families were studied in the states of Delhi, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. Though the participants of the study cannot be representative of the whole Indian population, the results of the study can certainly be seen as indicators of the scenario of the right to education of children with disabilities in India. An AARTH-ASTHA Publication Study conducted by AARTH-ASTHA, New Delhi in collaboration with AAINA, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha and SPARC-INDIA, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh First Published in December, 2013. New Delhi – 19, India A Research Study by AARTH-ASTHA In Collaboration with AAINA and SPARC-INDIA Supported by UNICEF Prepared by Radhika M. Alkazi & Nabajit Malakar Cover Pages by Nabajit Malakar Acknowledgement Completion of this research study was possible with the work and support of several people. We would like to express our deepest appreciation and sincere gratitude to all of them. This report could not have been possible without the support and cooperation of the families of the children with disabilities who were interviewed. Therefore, we dedicate this report to them. The field workers who interviewed the families and the children did the most crucial work given the length of the schedules. We thank the interviewers, researchers, data entry personnel and the directors for their work. They are - AARTH-ASTHA Team – Radhika M. Alkazi, Nabajit Malakar, Rajasree Vrindavan, Binod Bharti, Krishna Bansal, Anuradha Jasrotia, Meera Nagar, Niranjana, Kiran Kumari, Kajol Bhati, Dazy Chaudhary, Rinku Devi, Seema Gurung, Rukshar and Bharti Sale. AAINA Team – Sneha Mishra, Pradyumna Kumar Rath, Dillip Biswal, Santap Kumar Panda, Abhisekh Brhma, Swaha Das, Basant Kumar Pattanaik, Sujata Mohapatra, Anil kumar Pattanaik, Kishore Pradhan and Minati Panda. SPARC Rural Team - Amitabh Mehrotra, Shraddha Singh, Manoj k Singh, Brijesh, Bhola Ram, Shivpati , Sarita, Arun, Devesh, Lal Shahab Singh, Ranjana Mishra, Shyama Singh, Nirmal, Abhishek, Sooraj, Sandeep, Shyam Babu Pandey and Ashish Yadav We would also like to thank Ms. Poonam Natarajan (Chairperson, The National Trust), Ms. Anupam Ahuja (Associate Professor, NCERT) and Sri Ambarish Rai (Convener, RTE Forum) for their advice, guidance and support to this study. Dedicated to all children with disabilities & their families... Contents Executive Summary........................................................................... 1 Introduction .................................................................................. 4 Chapter I: National Data For Planning .................................................... 13 Chapter II: About The Families ........................................................... 23 Chapter III: Children Who Are Attending Schools ..................................... 28 Chapter IV: Children Who Have Dropped-Out Of School ............................... 55 Chapter V: Home-based Education? ....................................................... 64 Chapter VI: Children Who Have Never Set Foot in School ............................. 68 Chapter VII: The Way Forward .......................................................... 75 References .................................................................................. 82 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT ON STATUS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES UNDER THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION ACT 2012-13 Executive Summary The Right of children with disabilities to Free and Compulsory Education has been strengthened at the policy level over the years. In 1995, the Persons with Disabilities Act mandated free education in appropriate environments for all children with disabilities till the age of eighteen. The Sarva Siksha Abhiyan has had a separate Inclusive Education component that focuses on children with disabilities. In 2008, India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 24 of this Convention focuses on Education. The Convention mandates that States “ensure an inclusive education system at all levels and lifelong learning” for children and persons with disabilities. In 2009 India enacted the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. The Act gives to children between the age group of 6-14, the right of free and compulsory education with special mention of children with disabilities. The first amendment of the Act further categorised children with disabilities among the children of disadvantaged groups entitling them to certain other rights. Children with severe and multiple disabilities were further entitled to ‘Home-based Education’ through the same amendment. AARTH-ASTHA, being an organization active in the education sector and as a member of the National RTE Forum had resolved to keep a watch on the implementation of the right to education of children with disabilities and publish an annual stock-taking report. The “Third Annual Report on Stocktaking of Status of Education of Children with Disabilities under the RTE Act 2009” is a joint effort of three organizations from three distinct geographical areas – AARTH-ASTHA from Delhi, AAINA from Odisha and SPARC- INDIA from Uttar Pradesh. This collaboration resulted in an in-depth study and analysis of the status of the right to education of 150 children with disabilities belonging to disadvantaged communities, 50 from each state, from the perspective of their families. Children with disabilities constitute one of the biggest groups of drop-out and out of school children. The RTE Act has, no doubt given many families the strength to approach the neighbourhood school for the admission of their children. While the school are not able to deny admission now, they often point out at the lack of infrastructure and facilities to accommodate children with disabilities. Some parents struggle, some get disheartened and loose hope, while some other parents still never gather the courage to get their child outside the house due to various environmental barriers, accessibility issues or at times due to pure pessimism. On the contrary, there are examples of many good practices where parents are proactive or the school takes the initiative of making necessary changes to accommodate the child. The report looks at all these dimensions and points out where the problems locate and gives recommendations on how to overcome these problems. Page | 1 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT ON STATUS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES UNDER THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION ACT 2012-13 The report is based on empirical evidence from families of children with disabilities and attempts to look at how accessible the country’s education system is to children with disabilities. It looks at the various groups of children with disabilities in regard to their educational status by categorizing them in the following groups – i) Children who are going to schools; ii) Children who have dropped out of schools; iii) Children who have never set foot in schools; and iv) Children who have been enrolled under home-based education. As we attempt to take stock at the end of the third year of the implementation of the RTE Act, we find that the inclusion of children with disabilities in the government school system cannot be cast in a strong upward graph. A look at the official data available for planning, the DISE shows that the enrolment of children with disabilities in relation to all children continues to be less than one percent over the span of a decade. In all three states we find that the administrative procedures seem to be increasingly following the letter of the law. The majority of families did not have to submit documents for admission, children were not screened, families were not interviewed, no fees were demanded from families at the time of admission, books and money for uniforms was provided universally to all children studying in government schools. However, at the same time, the system is still not accepting the children with disabilities. The ‘push out’ factors are overwhelmingly in the attitudes of school authorities. School authorities often try to stall the admission of a child with disabilities by giving different reasons why the child will not be able to participate. Despite the entitlement, basic necessities for children with disabilities to access schools like transport are not provided to children in Uttar Pradesh or Delhi. In Odisha out of the 40 school going children, 10 were given escort allowance. Families of children receiving the allowance are encouraged to send their children to school. On the other hand, families of children who require support to go to school have to make a huge effort. Such children are in danger of dropping out. Children with disabilities were seen facing challenges posed by inaccessibility of facilities within schools such as toilets, drinking water facilities and mid-day meals. Most parents pointed out the lack of systems within schools of ensuring assistance and reasonable accommodation, resulting in ad-hoc strategies. The practice of parents coming to school to feed their children or take them to use the toilet needs to be replaced by provisioning for personal assistance. Many parents expressed their worries about the safety and security of their children within school in the absence of helper staff and security at school gates. Due to lack of attention, children with disabilities were seen roaming around while their classmates

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