Research Gateway

Abstract

Around the world, children are excluded from schools where they belong because of disability, race, language, religion, gender, and poverty and India is no exception. But every child has the right to be supported by their parents and community to grow, learn, and develop in the early years, and, upon reaching school age, to go to school and be welcomed and included by teachers and peers alike. When all children, regardless of their differences, are educated together, everyone benefits—this is the cornerstone of inclusive education. India is a country with abundant human capital. This important human resource should be tended properly through education and training to engage it successfully in the nation building activity. But unfortunately, more than half of our children are out of the school system due to various reasons. This is in violation to Human Rights issue which stresses upon upholding human dignity. The main goal of Right to Education Act and Inclusive Education is making education available to each child irrespective of his location, class, caste, religion, status and standing mental and physical limitations and other disadvantages the child may be suffering from. There are number of initiatives taken in pursuance of this objective such as The Indian Education Commission (1964-66), Integrated education for Disabled Children (IEDC, 1974), National Policy on Education (NPE, 1986-92), Project Integrated Education for the Disabled (PIED, 1987), District Primary Education Program (DPEP, 1994), The Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995.