One Teacher for Every 150 Children with Special Needs

A Right to Information (RTI) request has revealed that Panjab’s state-run schools have only one teacher for every 150 children with special needs (CWSN). This is a gross violation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act which mandates one special educator for every 10-15 students with special needs. The data shows 44,604 disabled children in govt. schools, but only 279 special educators, leading to severe understaffing, especially in districts like Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran where each teacher handles over 300 students. In an affidavit to the Supreme Court of India, the Panjab govt. acknowledged 3,911 vacancies for special educators and highlighted a plan to fill these positions within two years. However, it cited a shortage of qualified special teachers. To address this, the state is considering training regular teachers to handle basic disabilities, although experts argue this is inadequate and specialized training is necessary. Meanwhile, Seventy-year-old Vijay Walia, who is fully visually impaired, uses a mobile app to convert image or PDF files into Word format, allowing his phone's accessibility option to read the text aloud. But his disability has not deterred him from filing hundreds of Right to Information (RTI) applications, especially for the rights of laborers and the underprivileged. His two year long relentless efforts bore fruits last month when the Panjab govt. implemented free travel to attendants of blind people on govt. buses. In fact, the Panjab govt. scheme Divyangjan Shaktikaran Yojna allows free travel for one person accompanying a blind passenger in govt. buses. Though 12.6% out of 65K disabled people are visually impaired, the state had not implemented the provision until Walia took up the cause in 2022.