The Indian state upon itself has taken the responsibility of providing access to basic education. Therefore various measures has been taken by the government to provide access to education to all categories of students. Thus to engage differently able children, special education is provided in India to improving the quality of their life. The fast pace technological advancement has also led to fast improving Special Education in India for physically or mentally challenged. But some recent research has thrown fresh insights on the special education needs in India.
The concept Special education in India is present since the pre independence time, with very few schools or NGOs helping intellectually impaired children but today our country has come a long way and made a good progress in the field of rehabilitation. Presently India has four national institutes for effective implementation of this special education through various government schemes. The popular national level institutes for persons with disability are the National institute for Hearing Handicapped, National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped, National Institute of the Visually Handicapped, National Institute for Orthopedically Handicapped and National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities. National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research and The Institute for Physically Handicapped are other two national level institutes run by government. Moreover, government has initiated District Rehabilitation Centre (DRC) scheme in ten states to make all-inclusive rehabilitation and also four Regional Rehabilitation Training Centers are there to train the staff and teachers who work with these institutes.
Today due to global competitiveness, education scenario in India is fast changing. Along with that, special education is also catching importance and various government agencies are working hard to make it available to masses. There are various diploma and B.Ed. courses in the field of special education in India. All these courses are regulated and governed by the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) - a legislative body under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
However over the years many scholars have questioned the importance of special education in India as they feel that it leads to isolation and seclusion of the differently abled children. They argue that this approach will ruin the concept of mainstreaming.
Therefore, to keep the special education at par with regular education, vocational courses are also initiated. Also, there has been a National Policy of Education, in which government has declared that education of children with gentle disabilities will be in regular schools. Due to such reforms and regulations, the quality and reach of special education in India has increased over the years giving new hopes and bright future for disabled.
Keeping all this in mind our aim is also to sensitise the people toward the concept and provide maximum input in the area of Special Education.