For 17-year-old Jareen Saifi, school is the highlight of her day. Born with multiple disabilities including speech impairment, she eagerly signs to her mother asking if they can go to school. For the past five years, she has been attending the Girls Senior Secondary School in New Delhi’s New Friends Colony — a mainstream institution with a relatively high proportion of children with disabilities. The school offers a special educator, resource room and speech therapy, all of which are crucial for her. The school’s playground is close to her classroom and that is where she truly lights up. 

But the long list of shortcomings in the school overshadows the positives. Jareen’s special educator doesn’t help her interact with other children in her class. She also spends two to three hours in the school’s resource room – a monotonous routine she dislikes. “There is no audio-video material in the resource room, which is the most important feature for Jareen’s learning. The toilets for children with disabilities are not hygienic. Her teachers and peers do not understand what she is trying to communicate. Sometimes she might have to go to the restroom, but no one understands it,” Jareen’s mother (who didn’t want to be named), told Citizen Matters. 

Jareen’s case reflects a grim reality: while mainstream schools in Indian cities are making efforts to be inclusive, a lot more needs to be done. Some facilities are in place, but important support systems are missing. “If only the school had teaching–learning material and alternative augmentative communication, it wouldn’t have been so hard for teachers and classmates to understand Jareen,” said Pratik Aggarwal, Executive Director, ASTHA, a community-based disability organisation in New Delhi. The school also lacks facilities such as reading material in Braille, ramps and accessible toilets.

Thirteen-year-old Mohammed Ameen, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), studies at Dev Samaj Modern School in New Delhi. He requires regular sessions with special educators, access to a therapy room, and regular physical activity to help manage his hyperactivity. However, the school lacks all these features. “The school has only one special educator despite enrolling a significant number of children with disabilities. Most of the time, my son is made to sit at the back of the class even though his condition requires closer attention,” his mother, seeking anonymity, said.

Now in class eight, Mohammed finds the syllabus difficult. But the school has neither adjusted the curriculum nor question papers for him. Since he is also uncomfortable with the special educator, he avoids those classes. 

Citizen Matters reached out to these schools for their comment, but got no response. 

Schools are legally bound to include children with disabilities

Barrier-free access, technology-based tools, textbooks in accessible formats such as large print and Braille: Chapter 6.11 of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, has many such infrastructural and technological provisions that schools should adopt to meet the needs of students with disabilities. 

While many Indian states such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have not yet implemented NEP, they are still bound by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act.

Read more: How to create a Bengaluru that ensures accessibility for everyone

All government and private schools in India should compulsorily implement the following provisions under the RPwD Act:

• Admit children with disabilities without discrimination and provide them equal opportunities for education, sports and recreation
• Make building, campus, and facilities such as toilets accessible for wheel-chair users 
• Detect specific learning disabilities in children at the earliest and take pedagogical measures to overcome them
• Train and employ teachers to teach in sign language and Braille, and to teach children with intellectual disabilities
• Provide books, learning devices and assistive devices to children with disabilities.

Meeting all needs of children with disabilities may be challenging, but many schools lack basic features such as accessible buildings and reading material, special educators, resource centres, and awareness among teachers.

Why then do children with disabilities choose mainstream schools over special schools? “Educating children in special schools is expensive. Second, when they mingle with non-disabled students, their social and academic skills improve a lot. Third, these children will eventually have to attend mainstream colleges, as there are few special colleges,” said P Karuna Murthy, parent of a 11-year-old intellectually disabled girl from Chennai. 

Some schools lead the way

A few schools show that being inclusive is indeed possible.

Chennai’s Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School has taken small but thoughtful measures for this – from placing wheelchair users in ground-floor classrooms to arranging special desks, says former principal Suma Padmanabhan. The school also obtained exemptions for them from CBSE as they couldn’t attend labs on the first and second floors. Disabled students can also arrive before or after assembly, to avoid rush.

Srushti Montessori, an inclusive school in Bengaluru, supports students with disabilities and developmental delays through a technological tool called Portage. “We assess the child’s difficulties and set goals in collaboration with therapists, parents and teachers. We review these goals – whether related to socialisation, speech or eye contact – every three months. In most cases, we have been able to reverse developmental delays among children who enrolled as early as 2 or 2.5 years,” said the school’s founder, Kalpana Prasad.

What holds back most schools from adopting similar measures? “Retrofitting a school for children with disabilities or including more special educators is a costly affair. Second, some parents of non-disabled children fear their children might imitate the behaviour of classmates with disabilities,” said a school principal from Mumbai, seeking anonymity.

Governments are neither implementing nor enforcing the law

Under RPwD Act, all schoolgoing children should be surveyed every five years to identify those with disabilities and their needs. The first survey was to be done in April 2019, within two years of the Act coming into force.

Besides, “the law made it mandatory that all existing public buildings, including schools, had to be made accessible within five years of the union government issuing the Rules. And services, whether offered by the government or by private players, were to be made accessible within two years of the notification of Rules,” Pratik Aggarwal said.

But none of these has been done. 

Several states have lagged in implementing the Act overall. As of 2021, most states had not even notified the Rules to implement the Act. In April 2024, the Supreme Court directed several states – including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh – to appoint State Commissioners within two months to implement the Act.

Besides, state governments are not ensuring compliance by schools. Under RPwD Act, non-compliant schools can be fined Rs 10,000 for the first offense, and up to Rs 5 lakh for subsequent offences. Severe violations are treated as discrimination, for which school authorities such as the principal can even be imprisoned. 

But enforcement is rare. One such instance was in October 2024, when Rajasthan’s State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Umashankar Sharma, directed the School Education Department to fine each non-compliant school ₹25,000. The money was to go to the Chief Minister’s Fund, to be used to install disabled-friendly infrastructure in schools.

Ensuring inclusivity in schools is a multi-departmental effort under the Act. The state education department, under the Samagra Shiksha programme, is responsible for providing special educators. The NCERT and SCERT, under the union and state government respectively, have to make reading materials accessible. But it is the state department for the welfare of differently-abled persons that holds statutory responsibility of ensuring compliance with the RPwD Act. 

In its recent audit, Tamil Nadu’s Welfare of the Differently Abled Persons Department found many lapses in schools and other public places. “Private schools have not adhered to the norms of the RPwD Act as much as government schools. There is still a long way to go to make these spaces inclusive,” said a senior department official, seeking anonymity. Though the Act holds this department responsible, the official said the school education department is responsible for taking action.

Whereas for school education departments, enforcing the Act is not a priority. An official from Delhi’s Education Department said, “Visiting schools, checking lapses and ensuring compliance happen only when we receive complaints from disabled activists. It is not done consistently.” 

City governments can play an active role

In this scenario, other stakeholders should pitch in, say disability rights activists. 

Setting up resource centres at the city level can be a game changer. Local governments should set up these centres, involving NGOs, community members and educationalists, experts say. 

“These centres should support schools and train teachers to handle various disabilities. At present, government schools have only one special educator for every 20 to 30 schools,” said Prashant Ranjan Verma, general secretary, National Association for the Blind, New Delhi. 

Read more: For parents of children with autism, this project promises early intervention

City governments — whether it is the BBMP in Bengaluru, or BMC in Mumbai — can also ensure school buildings are inclusive. “All future school buildings should not get a No Objection Certificate from civic bodies unless they follow accessibility norms. It is cheaper, and in some cases costs nothing, when accessibility is built into the planning stage. A planned inclusive design is far more economical than retrofitting a building later, which can be very expensive,” said Dr Indumathi Rao, Regional Advisor at the Community-Based Rehabilitation Network, a Bengaluru-based NGO working on equitable inclusive education among other goals.

This article is a part of our work supported by the Sudha Mahesh grant, exploring how inclusive education can bridge gaps in access and equity for children with disabilities or special needs.

Also read:

• Mathru school transforms lives of special needs children in Bengaluru 
• Chennai’s special schools face challenges beyond COVID
• A few small steps can make public spaces inclusive for neurodivergent people too