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DEVELOPMENTAL ARTICLES

PREPARATION OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS: PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE TRENDS

Vijayalakshmi Myreddi* and Jayanthi Narayan

ABSTRACT

Educating children with special needs who may not benefit from regular school education calls for changes in curricula, classroom arrangements, provision of aids and appliances, additional finances and appropriate teacher preparation. Preparation of special teachers in India has many problems which need to be addressed. This paper critically analyses the process of preparation of teachers of children with special needs in India, and makes suggestions to improve this process.

INTRODUCTION

All school going children, whether they are disabled or not, have the right to education as they are the future citizens of the country. Some children with special needs may not benefit from regular classroom education due to various reasons including disability. In such a case, it is only appropriate that they be provided with education in some other meaningful way. This entails changes in curricular decisions and classroom arrangements, provision of aids and appliances, arrangements for finances and above all, appropriate teacher preparation. The preparation of regular school teachers at primary and secondary levels is more or less streamlined in India, while the preparation of special teachers still faces problems related to the role of teachers in the different service programmes for people with disabilities, and the competency levels of teachers in terms of the ability to teach children with a single disability and those with multiple disabilities. These issues are further linked to teaching in integrated schools and special schools. The most important aspect of this situation is the economics of developing such a large task-force of personnel to meet the needs of persons with disabilities, whose prevalence is usually quoted as 'one in ten'. According to the National Policy on Education, 1992, the number of school going children with disabilities in India is reported to be about 12.59 million (1). It is in this context that this paper critically analyses the process of preparation of teachers for children with special needs.

GLOBAL SCENARIO

A survey on the situation of educational provision for children with special needs by UNESCO (2) illustrates the types of programmes offered in different parts of the world. The analysis of information from 63 countries that responded to the survey shows that special day schools, special classes in regular schools and residential schools, in that order, provide special education. Early childhood special education programmes, being of recent origin, are provided by only one fourth of the countries surveyed. Integrated and inclusive education are emerging trends practised in very few countries, in the form of support teaching in regular classes and establishment of resource room facilities. Most countries do not have a separate vocational education programme. However, in another UNESCO report, it is seen that about 11 countries have separate vocational training institutes and 6 have them as part of the upper secondary or secondary schools (3).

Apart from the programmes described above, special education is a major component of community based rehabilitation CBR programmes in developing countries, and requires trained personnel for effective delivery of services. For instance, in countries like South Africa a two year training is provided to people with 10 years of schooling to work as special education teachers in CBR programmes (4) and in Zimbabwe, training is provided to community rehabilitation technicians and volunteers for the same purpose (5). Though the process, model and approach may vary, all CBR programmes world-wide have the common objective of enabling persons with disabilities to receive assistance within the existing structures of education, health and social services. This is expected to promote the participation of people with disabilities in the various developmental programmes, and is an enormous task that requires specific manpower preparation to meet its objectives.

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICES IN INDIA

The service provisions in India for persons with disabilities are more or less similar to the global scenario. However, a majority of the services, including special schools, are concentrated in urban areas. There are more special schools for school going children than vocational training centres or integrated schools. Of late, a number of CBR programmes have been initiated to deliver services closer to the homes of people with disabilities.

Teacher Training

The UNESCO report of 1995 on teacher training was analysed for types of training, duration and the organisations offering them (3). Out of the 63 countries, only 48 have given adequate information on teacher training programmes. An analysis of the available information revealed that in 26 countries, general teacher training included some elements of special education, and that special education training is offered at the diploma level in 7 countries, at the degree level in 15 countries, at both levels in 3 countries. Detailed information on the availability of special education training programmes is not available, but the criteria for becoming a special education teacher are reported by 15 countries. Thirty nine countries have reported in-service training programmes on special education for both regular and special education teachers on a regular basis.

In India, a majority of the teacher training programmes are one year diploma courses after high school education, run by non-governmental organisations. There are about 6 university level programmes in the country leading to the B.Ed. degree after graduation. In the past, great variations were noted in the content, process and evaluation of the teacher training programmes run by the non-governmental organisations in India. The constitution of the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) brought about some changes in these aspects of teacher training programmes. RCI is currently making efforts to streamline the teacher training programmes in terms of syllabus, infrastructure and staff pattern, to assure the quality of training. It is now essential that higher level programmes also have uniformity in content and process, according to the directives of RCI in collaboration with Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development. The syllabus for university level programme (B.Ed. - Special Education) has been already standardised by RCI, while the M.Ed. syllabus is in the process of standardisation.

People with disabilities are provided education and training in different settings such as regular schools, special classes in regular schools, special schools, vocational training centres, CBR projects, and so on. Hence the staff involved in these programmes, including the special education teachers, are required to have different skills and knowledge depending on their client's needs, to provide individual based training. It is questionable whether the pre-service programmes to train special educators prepares them to function effectively in all the above these programmes. Hence a short in-service programme can be planned to help the staff to gain expertise in the areas that have not been covered in the pre-service training programme. A study by Narayan, Rao and Reddy (6) showed that special teachers of visually handicapped children could acquire the skills to identify children with mental retardation and to train them in basic skills, with one week's intensive training. This short training also instilled confidence in the teachers to handle children with mental retardation in addition to children with visual handicap.

Training of teachers in a single disability as against multi-category disability, is a point of discussion in many fora. Many question the quality and adequacy of training people in more than one disability. However, as reported in the National Policy on Education (7) both have their merits and demerits. Gartner and Lipskey (8) pointed out that non-categorical teacher training equips teachers to deal with more than one disability, which in turn bridges the boundaries between general education and special education. However, single disability training is also needed on a limited scale because the children with severe and profound disabilities cannot be easily integrated, and need special education in segregated settings.

A majority of the training programmes in India focus on a single disability. But a single disability teacher training programme is not economically viable since appointing special educators for small groups of 4 to 5 children with single disabilities would be very expensive. Hence, it is necessary to have a teacher training programme which enables the teacher to manage all disabilities. As the current trend in special education is integrated education and inclusive education, there is also a need for reorienting the general teacher training courses. Jangira (9) states that the assumption among most professionals is that general teachers cannot be trained to meet the educational needs of children with disabilities. He points out that this assumption is baseless as there has been no research conducted in this area. However, in order to provide training effectively to children with disabilities in different service programmes, single disability teachers, multi-disability teachers and regular teachers with special education skills would all be required. Therefore, different types of teacher training programmes will need to be planned, with variations in content, process and duration.

Training for master trainers

To train the teachers at various levels with diverse needs, well qualified and experienced master trainers are required, apart from well equipped departments of special education in universities. It is essential that master trainers are certified special educators in the respective disability, who further have higher qualification to be at a faculty level, in order to ensure quality in teacher preparation. The current scenario in India reveals that there are few universities which have departments of special education, not all of them have suitably qualified staff, and some have positions that have been vacant for a long time due to non-availability of trained persons. The world trend is towards universities having departments of special education training, and this trend needs to be followed in India as well. All universities must have departments of special education with courses at degree and post-graduate levels to enable preparation of master trainers in special education. This would also automatically lead to research in special education through M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes. The national institutes should collaborate with the universities with this aim, to upgrade the quality of special education on the whole.

In-service training programmes

The field of special education has grown tremendously in the past few years, demanding frequent updates for the professionals. Periodic in-service training programmes for teaching professionals to keep them abreast of the developments world-wide and to equip them to face the challenges of changing trends, is of paramount importance. Such programmes are needed for all levels of staff from classroom teachers to master trainers. Periodic short term programmes varying from 2 weeks to 3 months, based on the need, should be made mandatory for all trained professionals.

THE TASKS AHEAD

  1. Keeping in view the diverse needs of children with disabilities and the different models of service delivery systems, there is a need for reorienting the existing pre-service programmes in general education from pre-school to university levels and to plan in-service and pre-service programmes in special education at all levels.
  2. To implement the current concept of inclusive education, pre-school teachers should have in-service training on disabilities, and future training courses should include education of children with disabilities.
  3. In-service training programmes of two to three weeks' duration for general educators and special educators in all the disabilities and in specific areas of disability, are essential to effectively teach children with disabilities.
  4. Pre-service programmes at degree and post-graduate levels are necessary to improve the quality of teacher training and to promote research and development activities in the field of special education.
  5. All universities should have a department of special education to promote education of children with disabilities.
  6. There should be separate training programmes for staff working in CBR programmes. The preparation of teachers for rural special education programmes should be planned differently, as the aim of these programmes would be to integrate disabled persons in their own environment and community.
  7. Periodic evaluation of the training programmes and constant updating to meet the challenges of changing trends in special education should be part of the planning of teacher preparation.
  8. The curriculum for each of the above programmes should be carefully developed by an expert group which includes practising special teachers. The feedback from the teachers is imperative in making the correct decisions about the content.

The discussions here reveal only some of the problems, which require much more study to help ensure quality in preparation of teachers for children with disabilities.

* National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped, Manovikas Nagar PO,
Secunderabad 500 009, India

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank the Director, NIMH for permitting us to send this paper for publication. Efficient secretarial assistance of Mr. A. Venkateswara Rao is gratefully acknowledged.

REFERENCES

  1. National Policy on Education: Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi, 1992.
  2. Review of the present situation in special needs education. UNESCO, Paris, 1995.
  3. Legislation pertaining to special needs education. UNESCO, Paris, 1996.
  4. Deetlefs L. The establishment of a CBR service and training programme in Alexandra, South Africa. Actionaid Disability News 1995; 6 (1): 16-17.
  5. Myezwa H : The impact of community based rehabilitation service in Zimbabwe - The client point of view. Actionaid Disability News 1995; 6 (1):14-15.
  6. Narayan J, Subbarao TA, Reddy OR. Efficacy of short term training in education of mentally retarded children to teachers of visually handicapped students. International Journal of Rehabilitation Research 1998; 22: 109-112.
  7. National Policy on Education. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, 1986.
  8. Gartner A, Lipskey DK. Beyond Special Education: Towards a quarterly system for all students. Harward Educational Review 1997; 5 (4): 367-395.
  9. Jangira NK. Desirability and Feasibility of Integrated Education for Mentally Retarded Children. In P.Usha Rani and P.P.Reddy (Ed) Mental Retardation in India, Hyderabad: Institute of Genetics, 1990.




Title:
ASIA PACIFIC DISABILITY REHABILITATION JOURNAL Vol. 10 @ No. 1 @ 2000

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