21/12/12 11:14 AMHC allows shadow teacher for autistic child
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HC allows shadow teacher for autistic childFive months after the
Jamnabai Narsee School removed a seven-year-old autistic child
citing the reason thathe was not fitting into the classroom
environment and by demanding constant attention was disturbing
theother children, the child will return to the same school, armed
with a Bombay High Court order and a shad-ow teacher in tow.
In the first legal sanction in the country for a shadow teacher
to sit with a child in classroom, the HC onThursday allowed the
child to attend class with a trained special educator who will sit
with the student andhelp him acquire necessary skills to function
independently.
The court has also asked a committee appointed by the
Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of ChildRights (MSCPCR)
to assess the progress for a month.
Dr Samir Dalwai, a behavioural paediatrician, who will make the
assessment said the case would set a prece-dent for the rights of
autistic children. It will promote the concept of shadow teachers
to support such chil-dren within the mainstream school system. It
is very easy to talk about inclusive education, very difficult
toimplement it. It is for the first time in India that legal
sanction has been given to the concept of shadowteacher, he told
The Indian Express.
A division bench of Justice S J Vazifdar and Justice R Y Ganoo
allowed the child to be accompanied by theshadow teacher. The
shadow teacher will be appointed by the parents at their cost, said
lawyer PradeepHavnur who represented the parents.
The school based in Juhu had in July asked the parents to take
the child out of the school saying he displayedbehaviour that could
be detrimental to him and his classmates.
In a letter to the parents, Principal Sudeshna Chatterjee stated
that the school had pooled all resources, in-cluding
paediatricians, counsellors and special educators to enable the
child to meet the challenges of regularschool life.
However, over the last two years, the childs condition had
worsened on account of his frustration and inabili-ty to express
his needs to teachers, the letter said. This resulted in the child
disturbing the remaining 44 stu-dents on account of his constant
wandering about the classroom, shrill shrieks, escaping from the
classroomand constantly demanding the teachers attention.
The letter stated that the school was unable to provide personal
attention to the child and suggested that theparents put him in a
school that can give him personal attention for the duration of his
learning hours. Theboy, diagnosed with a few traits of autistic
spectrum disorder, has been in the school since June 2007.
The Right to Education Act specifies that not only can a school
not deny admission to special children, butonce a student is
admitted, it has to ensure the child sees through his entire school
education. The parents ap-proached the director of the Sarva Siksha
Abhiyan.
An officer was sent to the school, who recommended that the
child be re-admitted. They filed an applicationwith MSCPCR, and the
commission on November 8 appointed an expert committee of three
doctors to moni-tor and evaluate the boys condition.
The committee headed by Dr Dalwai recommended that the child be
allowed to continue at the school withthe help of a shadow teacher
for at least six months, and if there was no improvement, the boys
parents
