Children with disabilities
Entrance of children with disabilities to education is limited. An unequal educational structure, inflexible & unfriendly education programmes, lack of consciousness of parents, compounded with the insufficient knowledge of teachers and the inhospitable environment existing in the majority of the institutions, have done incredibly little to support education of children with disabilities in Bangladesh.
The nation has an estimated 1.6 million children with disabilities within the primary school-going age, but the total number of children enrolled in special & integrated education programmes is estimated to be far below 5,000. In terms of manpower in special education, 15 post-graduate teachers are trained each year through the Department of Special Education under Dhaka University. With all these efforts combined, only 4% of children with disabilities within the primary school-going age have so far been enrolled in education.
The education of the children with disabilities is under the purview of the Ministry of Social Welfare, which plays no part to attain the universal goal. Among the staggering 96% children who are still out of education, a major (70%) portion could have been enrolled in the standard national education programme with very little effort. This could be brought under a planned Inclusive Education Programme. The remaining 30% could be enrolled under Integrated and Special Education Programmes. But this has not happened.
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