Jalandhar, December 18
There is a basic lack of sensitivity for differently abled or special children in our country. When talking about the city, the situation gets grimmer. Of the over 4,000 special children in the district, presently only a few are making to special schools, while for the rest, there are no schooling facilities available.

A special child. Photo: Sarabjit Singh

Special children fall in the category of “disadvantaged” children, who have 25 per cent quota reserved in “normal” schools.

But in the city, only about a dozen schools are giving admissions to special children on a policy basis. In the rest, there is no policy to include special children. Some of the school authorities aren’t even sure what the term “special children” refers to, as they begin counting data regarding children from poor sections or visually or hearing impaired children. There are only four special schools in the district.

The role of the handful of “normal” schools that do offer special education also comes under question when one takes into consideration the fact that there are no special educators to teach students there.

The Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) Act prescribes punitive action against “unqualified persons” delivering services to persons with disability, but most of the schools in the city are not even aware of the Act guidelines.

A special child. Photo: Sarabjit Singh

At some of these schools, teachers have degrees by pursuing month-long courses from some institutes. In the rest, the classes are being taken by teachers with no special qualification at all to teach special children.

At the special schools themselves, things are not good enough. There is no division of batches of students on the basis of IQ and/or specific needs. A 20-year-old and a five-year-old attend the same class.

Lectures are mostly delivered by teachers with simple postgraduate diplomas and at some places even by undergraduates.

Sapna Bakshi from Eklavya School, one of the few local “normal” schools educating special kids, says, “I pursued a month-long special education course from the Alpha to Omega Institute in Chennai. I don’t know about other schools, but in our school a 55-year-old-volunteer and me are taking special classes. We have realised that youngsters mostly come in for the money. We need more dedicated people.”

Government role

SSA coordinator Jai Vishal says, “There are 80 centres in the district running for educating special children. Of these about 12 to 15 are being run in the city. Each centre has about five to 15 children (between the age of four to 16), who attend classes from 9 to 12 in the morning. Each centre has at least one special educator and the rest are volunteers from local centres. “The centres and SSA special educators collectively teach about 800 special children.”

Sources, however, say the number projected is much higher than the total children being taught. The facilities, too, they say, are no better than those at a regular government school. The students are being called in to show numbers rather than provide facilities.

Moving for money

A lot of special educators have also moved to the SSA in the past some years from full-time special schools because they felt they were underpaid there. This has in turn created a dearth of staff at special schools when it comes to special educators.

Parents

Amarjit Singh Anand, who runs NGO Chanan Association (for special kids) and has his own daughter going to a local special school for many years, says, “The basic fault lies in the government’s role. The state government needs to have a ministry for the disabled. The needs of the special children in the state and city have been greatly ignored. When it comes to mental disability, there is lack of resources, awareness and medical care. More parents’ platforms are also needed since special kids are not a group who can speak for themselves.”

Gurmukh Singh, who has 28-year-old special son, says, “My son has attended special schools in Jalandhar and Chandigarh and they are clearly not equipped to deal with the needs of children of all age groups and IQs. Same lessons and treatment is provided to all kinds of children with special needs. At places there are no special educators and at others there is dearth of staff. Special children deserve special care and the infrastructure or machinery in the state or city schools is not enough for them.”

It is widely known that many parents themselves are not serious about the needs of their special children. A sensitive parent says, “I have seen parents spending lakhs of rupees for their ‘normal’ children, but for a special child, even shelling out Rs 10 seems like a burden to them. Parents need to be better educated.”

Jalandhar December 18
The Jalandhar (Rural) police today claimed to have solved a blind murder case with the arrest of a youth. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Hardyal Singh Mann said Satnam Singh (32), resident of Lamhe village, near Bholath, was brutally murdered on the intervening night of May 28 and 29 this year.

Mohinder Kaur, mother of the deceased, in a statement to the police said Satnam had gone to the market on May 28 evening. When after hours, he didn’t return home, she along with other relatives started searching for him.

In the early morning next day the body of Satnam was found on the Bhoalth main road.

Satnam was murdered with sharp-edged weapons as his body bore such injury marks.

The SSP said Avtar Singh, alias Tari, resident of Maukanigarh village in Hoshiarpur, killed Satnam because his friend was in love with a girl, who was already in love with Satnam.

Avtar Singh was recently arrested by the Kapurthala police in connection with some crime and he was lodged in the Kapurthala jail.

“We brought the accused on police remand for interrogation in the murder case,” the SSP said.

During investigation, Avtar Singh told the police that he killed Satnam as he wanted to help his friend get the girl he loved.

Jalandhar, December 18
The sounds of sitar, vocals and flute reverberated in the DAVIET auditorium last night as ace artistes performed at Raag Naad 5th, the fifth classical evening held by the Naad Navrang Sangeet Sabha in the city.

The sabha, that has been earning accolades for its role in the promotion of classical music in the city, organised performances of artistes from India and abroad.

Organised by Kulwant Singh Slatch, a Europe-based disciple of renowned tabla maestro Ustad Allah Rakha, the evening saw performances by both newcomers and established artistes.

Though the sabha, like earlier years, did not rope in any major performers, the evening mesmerised the audience because of the talented performers and the right environment created.

Befitting for a classical music gathering, music lovers sat on mattresses on floor as they listened to the performances at the DAVIET auditorium.

The performances that stood out were those of Gurdeep Singh and Atul Krishna, who performed a composition in raga charukesi. They were accompanied by Kulwant Singh Slatch on the tabla.

Balwant Singh and Sukhdev Singh’s vocal nuances mesmerised the gathering. Their rare vocal intricacies from the Talwandi Gharana cast a spell on the gathering. They presented a bandish in raga bihag. They were accompanied by Harpreet Singh on the tabla.

UK-based Dharambir Singh (Sr) was the final delight of the evening. A disciple of Ustad Vilayat Khan and dedicated to the cause of propagating classical music knowledge in the UK, his sitar talked as much as his efforts for classical music propagation do.

Dharambir Singh (Sr) is also lauded for the classical music softwares that he has invented along with his students to facilitate the learning of classical music among netizens.

Performing in Jalandhar for the first time, he presented raga kambhoji and later another composition in raga pilu. He was accompanied by Ustad Akram Khan on the tabla.

Earlier in the evening, nine-year-old Raja Singh Rajput’s vocals were another highlight of the evening. He lacked the finesse of a classical artiste, but for a nine-year-old, he clearly oozed talent.

Jalandhar, December 18
Amarjit Singh, an English teacher at the Kendriya Vidyalaya no 1, Suranussi, Jalandhar, has earned accolades for his project on improvement of English language teaching.

He has been honoured with the Regional Incentive Award for the Jammu Region (which includes Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab) for his path breaking methods in teaching English.

His paper (on the subject ‘Innovative Ways to Improve English’) was one of the 36 project papers to be screened at the regional level and one of the 10 papers (there were only 10 for English) to be sent at the national level of the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS).

Amarjit, who has rendered more than 16 years of service at various KVs (Bathinda and Hussainpur), while taking to The Tribune said, “The award inspires me to work better in future.”

He made every child remember one word per day and in the longer run an entire class would learn many different words.

“I employed a similar technique for formation of sentences using those words. The end result was very satisfactory. I also noted down the results and made a data and the paper I have presented is based on the results I have found.” Amarjit has also been lauded for producing a good pass percentage. He received the award in a ceremony held on December 15.

Jalandhar, December 18
The city branch of the IMA held PIMACON-2011, a state-level conference, here today. As many as 1,200 delegates from all over Punjab attended the seminar.

Speakers spoke on topics like cancer, immunisation schedule, spinal chord injuries, bio-medical waste disposal, etc. Director, Health Services, Dr JP Singh, was the guest of honour.

The new constitution of the IMA was released on the occasion and Dr JP Singh also spoke to doctors on the proper disposal of bio-medical waste. 

Jalandhar, December 18
The BJP national secretary, Captain Abhimanyu, has reviewed the arrangements being made for the party’s national office-bearers meeting here on December 23 and rally here on December 24.

Former Deputy PM Lal Krishan Advani, BJP president Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitely and other senior leaders are likely to attend both the national office-bearers’ meeting and Jan Vishwas Maha Rally.

While no formal announcement is made so far about the venue of office-bearers’ meeting, the party sources said it would be held at a recently opened private hotel near general post office. The rally will be held at private land on Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur road.

During his visit, Capt Abhimanyu said Dr Manmohan Singh led UPA government should review its agricultural policy. Forward trading is hitting the farmers who are not getting remunerative prices of their yields, he added.

The ‘middle man’ was the ultimate beneficiary because of the ongoing practice of forward trading, he said, adding that there was an urgent need of making a policy to protect the interests of the farmers.

He was accompanied by the party’s national executive member Manoranjan Kalia, national vice president Vinod Sharma, state general secretary Ajay Jamwal, Jalandhar district unit president Subhash Sood.