Shimla: Inspired by Bollywood movie
'Taree Zamin Par', the Himachal Pradesh government has
identified over 3,000 school children suffering from dyslexia
(learning disability) and trained teachers to help them,
Education minister I D Dhiman said in the Assembly Wednesday.
"A total of 3,352 children have been found suffering
from dyslexia across the state," Dhiman said in reply to a
question of Congress Nikhil Rajour in the Assembly.
The minister praised the Aamir Khan starrer movie
which highlighted the problems of such children.
Dhiman said state government has trained teachers to
help children with dyslexia (problem in reading) and other
similar learning difficulties like Disgraphia (problem in
identifying images due to which the child is unable to write
properly) and dyscalculia (unable to use language meaningfully
or unable to understand spoken word).
Dhiman said 1,172 in service teachers have been trained
till date through a 90 days foundation course on education for
children with special needs (CWSN) which is conducted from
Madhya Pradesh Bhoj Open University (Bhopal) through distance
mode.
For this four study centres have been created in
Shimla, Kullu, Chamba and Sirmour as per the approval of
Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI), the HP education
minister said.
In addition, as part of the normal training schedule
adopted under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) every teacher has to
undergo 15 days training per year and in that a special
component on special measures for children with special needs
is an integral part of the training module, he said.
Till now 45,319 teachers have received this training,
the minister said.
Besides, 6765 teachers have received training ranging
from 3-7 days on inclusive education, Dhiman added.
Similarly, the state Council on Education Research and
Training (SCERT), Solan is also organising in service training
programmes. 1,265 teachers have been trained to sensitise them
to address the special needs of children with disabilities
including dyslexia, the HP education minister said.
In reply to a question, the minister ruled out
possibility of opening special schools for such children in
the state on the pattern of schools for blind and deaf and
dumb on the ground that such students were scattered
throughout the state.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 16:24