A group of women spending several hours outside a room in a government school in Amer block in Rajasthan is a common sight these days. This room is no ordinary classroom, but a resource room for children with special needs who have so far gone unnoticed in the traditional schooling system. However, with the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act coming into effect, the needs of differently-abled children are coming into focus.

The RTE Act, being implemented under the Centre's flagship Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), provides for an inclusive education system that caters to the needs of not only the under-privileged but children with special needs also. Barrier Free Access is an important aspect of the programme and refers to universal access for all children and adults within the schools — access not just to buildings and physical infrastructure, but also to curriculum and teaching-learning process.

As mandated under the SSA, all districts in the country should have provision for differently-abled children who cannot be enrolled in the mainstream schools. Having decided to implement the RTE aggressively, Rajasthan has already set up one resource room each for these children up to the age of 14 in all 249 blocks. Each resource centre has three specially trained resource persons and two helpers.

The Education department conducts camps in every district where children with disabilities are identified and their needs assessed. They are broadly categorised as those with hearing impairment, visual impairment, multiple disabilities and mental retardation. For two days in a week parents bring their children to these schools for special kind of teaching.

Amer block alone has 1,080 children with special needs and Jaipur district has 17,000, who are attended to in 18 resource centres across the district.

While the Human Resource Development Ministry funds the resource rooms, and provides hearing aids, special shoes and other tools, the State government has introduced corrective surgeries for polio affected children, a large number of whom have already benefited from the scheme. Last year, 730 children got corrective surgeries at the Narain Sewa Sansthan in Udaipur and this year's target is 935.

“I don't know whether my child will improve or not, but he is very happy here,” said a young mother who brings her hearing impaired child to the resource room every week. The children are provided meals under the Mid Day Meal scheme and the parents are given transportation allowance.

The evaluation techniques are such that these children are given extra time to learn. They are also provided with calculators, abacus, Braille, slant board and pencil grips.

The syllabus is flexible, and the guidelines can be changed to suit the needs of a child.