The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has come out with exclusive reading materials for inclusive classrooms as a pilot project and part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis of Divyangs (differently-abled) the booklets have been designed to take care of requirements of children with special needs particularly visually impaired.
NCERT said that time has come to move over from “homogeneous to heterogeneous” classrooms. “This project has been started on a pilot basis and keeping all the principles of universal design for learning in mind,” NCERT Director Hrushikesh Senapaty said at a Press conference.
Each booklet has Braille and other tactile components, besides word-picture flash cards, to cater to children with learning disability, speech or language disorder, visual impairment, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and cerebral palsy, among other disabilities.
The print material has been released under ‘Barkhaa Series’ — a supplementary ‘Graded Reading Series’, originally developed by the Department of Elementary Education at the NCERT. The series is a pedagogic tool aimed at helping children in learning at the foundation level.
It has 40 illustrated story booklets across five themes, relationships, birds-animals, musical instruments, games and toys, around us, and food, and four reading levels.
“Our motto is one book for all. We do not want to label children and these books are a baby step in the direction of having real inclusive classrooms, where children share the same space and same books, without feeling insecure or discriminated against,” Prof Anupam Ahuja of the Department of Education of Groups with Special Needs at the NCERT said.