An inclusive school that has, over the years, seen children without disabilities leave for mainstream schools, sent out five students with disabilities for Madhyamik this year. Three of them scored more than 70 per cent (A grade).
Bloomingdale Academy High School in Kalikapur started in 2011 with a ratio of 60:40, where for every 100 students, 60 were without disabilities and 40 with disabilities.
Over the years, the ratio has reversed, the head of the school said.
The school’s fight is not just to teach children with disabilities and help them achieve their goals but to change the mindset of parents of kids without disabilities and make them more accepting.
“By the time the students are in Class VIII, the parents of children without disabilities withdraw their kids because they feel that with neurodivergent students in the same classroom, the pace of learning slows down,” said Pradipta Kanungo, director, Bloomingdale Academy High School.
Such parents feel that the classroom lacks competition, she said.
“When I started the school, for every 100 students we had 60 without disabilities but now of the 100, 65 are with disabilities. We had about 15 children who would have appeared for Madhyamik but parents of children without disabilities withdrew them gradually,” said Kanungo.
Of the five students who appeared this year, two have autism, one of the students is hearing impaired and the other two have learning disabilities.
The two students with autism scored 71.28 per cent and 70.14 per cent.
One of the students with a learning disability scored 76.57 per cent and the other 54.28 per cent.
The student with hearing impairment scored 66 per cent.
“The fact that the children with disabilities have done well is a message to society that they have to be given the right opportunity and environment,” a teacher said.
The children were provided remedial classes, which counters the logic of other parents that the quality of classroom teaching is not of the level it should be.
Parents of children with disabilities have to face ostracization and indifference from other parents or people in society, teachers said.
A parent of a child with autism said she had to withdraw her child from a mainstream school in Class V because the school wanted to send the child to a special school.
“I then put my child in Bloomingdale Academy because doctors at Nimhans (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences) Bengaluru had told me that my child should be in an inclusive school and not a special school. In an inclusive school, there is a routine and discipline that is beneficial for all,” said the parent.
A child in an inclusive environment will have access to mainstream education and more opportunities, said Indrani Basu, director, Autism Society West Bengal.
“They get access to more events and the opportunity to interact with a vast array of people that helps them develop social and communication skills,” Basu said.
Children without disabilities benefit from this, too. “They learn about neurodiversity and that the world is not confined to their kind of people,” said Basu.
A classroom should give space to children with multi-level learning abilities, said Kanungo.
“A child without any disability has to learn ‘my friend is not like me and yet he or
she is my friend’. When such children go out into the world they are naturally more sensitive and accepting,” said Kanungo.