Chembur Colony Yuvak Mandal’s

ACADEMIC EVENTS AT HACSE

HASHU ADVANI COLLEGE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION has launched - ANKOOR, empowerment unit for children with LEARNING DISABILITIES. The objective of the activity is threefold: tuning school system to make it more disability friendly, family empowerment and individual support services to the concerned students. As the first step, ANKOOR is holding a school screening to identify the students with learning disabilities currently studying in lower primary classes in and around Chembur. Towards this purpose, a workshop for class teachers of lower primary section of various schools was held on 3rd March 2012. Overwhelming response was received by schools and teachers wherein 65 teachers enrolled as soon as they knew about it. This is an indicator that students with learning disabilities are currently studying in schools in big number and more number of teachers is concerned about education of these students.

There is a growing concern for children and youth with learning disabilities. The term learning disability describes children, adolescents and adults who have problems in learning such as reading, spelling, writing and mathematics. This group differs from those having handicaps such as mental retardation, visual or hearing impairments and emotional/behavioral disorders. Learning disability is a difficult to notice handicap. Yet it is quite common and the incidence of this disability is quite high. For example, as per one of the many estimates, nearly 13-14 percent of the schools going children have learning disorders in India.

Over and above the common needs of love, care and affection, children with learning disabilities have more specific needs which have to be fulfilled in order to mainstream them educationally and socially. These include early diagnosis, mature and accommodative teachers, supportive families, flexible curriculum and assessment strategies, patient and diversity friendly school environment etc. Inclusive education is possible only if adequate support is provided to the schools. Teacher orientation to disability and participation in identifying the appropriate students is extremely crucial. The said workshop was one of the steps towards this purpose. Dr Asmita Huddar, principal of HACSE appealed to the class teachers that if teachers want to see positive changes in the current school system, they have to become the agents of that expected change. Identifying diverse learning needs would be the beginning of this effort. Ms Gayatri Sirur Assistant professor explained the screening tool - BCSLD Behavioral Checklist for screening the Learning Disabled (Swarup and Mehta, 2011). The teachers would complete the checklists by March end so that parents and schools can be informed about it before summer break. Approximately 3600 students will be covered under this school screening and students for whom learning disability is suspected will be sent for assessment and diagnosis.

Who doesn’t want a right based, diversity friendly and inclusive society! But we need to tune our schools to be accommodative before we dream of having that kind of society. As higher education agencies we all need to contribute squirrels’ share in the larger goal of EDUCATION FOR ALL.

HASHU ADVANI COLLEGE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION.

'Towards Measurable Objectives : Empowering Special Schools for the deaf'

Hashu Advani College of Special Education organized a two days conference on “Towards Measurable Objectives: Empowering Special Schools for the deaf" on 30th June & 1st July 2011 at Rotary Hall, Juhu. The conference was organized following a request from the Headmasters of Special Schools from Mumbai and suburbs. The whole conference was held in Marathi as most of the teachers were found to be comfortable in Marathi. It was decided to hold the conference in the beginning of the academic year 2011 – 12 so that the teachers can plan and implement school curriculum in a more systematic and positive way. The conference was granted CRE status by RCI wide letter # RCI Letter # 7-16 (103) - 11 / RCI / 4716 dated - 09.06.2011.

The participants consisted of 181 Special Educators of the deaf (the list is enclosed) K.D.N Shruti School for the deaf was a strategic partner in this effort.Mrs. Chhaya Datar from HACSE was the conference coordinator and anchored the programme.

Dr.Asmita Huddar, Principal of HACSE introduced the conference by stating the objectives of the conference. She motivated the participants to think differently and act according to their changing role and educational needs of the children with hearing impairment.

The conference sessions as indicated in the attached schedule were divided into two sections. First day was devoted to measuring school performance and the second day was devoted to measuring student performance.

Children with hearing impairment have been studying in special schools for decades. It is time now to review the special school system and measure whether it is fulfilling the set objectives or not. For this, performance of the school as well as that of the students needs to be made measurable. Hashu Advani College of Special Education held a two days conference to empower the schools to make activities and outcome more measurable.

To measure the school performance, the schools need to have well developed mission, vision and quality objectives which are specific and measurable. Most of the schools do not have these and hence Ms.Sangita Gole and Mr.Sandesh Kadam made presentation on the basic concepts required for making policy statements for the special schools. In the post lunch sessions the participants were divided into 22 groups for developing mission - vision - objectives. They were given input and samples of mission statements of various organizations. As a result of this skill development session the groups developed and presented their mission statements.

The second day started with presentation of various educational evaluation strategies to be used in the primary schools. In the light of comprehensive and continual evaluation the participants were informed about these strategies and how to bring them in the formal evaluation framework. Later on, the indicators and parameters of language assessment were discussed. In the post lunch skill development sessions, actual written language samples of the hearing impaired students were distributed amongst the participants and they were taught how to make the language measurable.

At the end, the summary of two days was presented and teachers were asked one by one to announce about the changes they would bring about in their teaching as a result of this conference.

In the winding up session, the budget and expenditure was presented since the conference was held on ‘no profit no loss’ basis. Participants had paid Rs. 300/- as the registration fees.

Printed material was distributed during all the sessions. Representative of Shruti School Mrs.Divya Nair presented vote of thanks on behalf of Hashu Advani College of Special Education.

Feedback given by the participants indicated that the sessions

1. Motivated them
2. Helped them in drafting mission and vision
3. Updated them and refreshed their knowledge on setting quality objectives
4. Developed basic skills into language assessment.