About three fourths of five year old Children with Disabilities (CWD) and one fourth of the CWD are out of school in India, according to UNESCO’s State of the Education Report for India 2019 Children with Disabilities.
The report released in New Delhi on Wednesday said that the proportion of CWD who are out of school is higher than the overall out of school children in the national level. Despite several programmes for bringing CWD to school, the report says that the gap still remains.
The report points out that the CWD who get enrolled in schools have significantly come down with each academic year.
In the report, it has also been stated that the number of fiunescve year old CWD in India as per 2011 census was 368,697, of which only 99,259 attended educational institutions, while 263,966 have never attended any of the institutions.
With respect to enrolment, the report says that there was a decline in enrolment at the primary level (Comparing three years 2014/15 to 2016/17). With respect to upper primary, the report says that enrolment numbers had slightly increased in 2015-16. It also said that enrolment was relatively seen to be stable at secondary level and also points that it has improved at the higher secondary level over the years.
UNESCO in its report also states that children with multiple disorders, mental retardation and mental illness are those who attend the school less. Majority of those enrolling in schools are seen to be having learning disability, the report says.
Despite various steps and measures taken by the government to address the issues related to Children with Disability, the report says that more measures are needed to achieve the SDG 2030 target.
