TIIE-EL-Education System

Block Inclusive Education Resource Teacher (BIERT)

The Planned agenda for the meeting with BIERT is as follows:

1. ITFC Inclusive work presentation – 15 minutes

2. Baseline presentation- 30 minutes

3. Questions for discussion with BIERT (1 hr)

   • What does your work involve? How frequent are the interactions with teachers and students?

   • In your school visits and interactions with students, have you observed any children showing signs of LD/MLD?

   • Are there any diagnostic assessments done by you/department to identify children with SLDs? How are these done? What support is offered to schools, children, families?

   • Are follow-up visits done for students with CWSN and/or LDs/MLDs? How frequently are these conducted?

   • What are the schemes/facilities provided by the government to support CWSN (optional)

   • What pedagogical support is provided to such students? Do teachers receive training from the department?

4. Checking about IE resource centre (30 minutes)

   • Are they maintaining any resources related to IE?

   • What kind of resources are these? (check if it is helpful to our resources)

   • Uploading/maintaining/sharing our IE resources?

Govt. facilities and aids for CWSN

• There are four BIERTs, two for primary and two for secondary school, and they specialize in LD (Shivanna), VI (Surekha, Meena), and MR(Roopa) during BEd.
• There are 347 CWSN students divided into three groups: home-based, school-ready, and school-based under the department's 21 parameters.
• The government organizes weekly-twice psychotherapy treatment for severe CWSN students (those who are unable to attend school), as well as government-provided MR kits and scholarships for those who have UDID (Unique disability identification card).
• In South 3 Block, currently 50 students from HS and HPS are experiencing ID and LD challenges.   
• There are some government hospitals to diagnose students' difficulties, such as Victoria, Sanjaygandhi, NIMHANS, and others (Day wise availability of hospitals are attached in photo to meet doctors in respective hospital but doctors details and their specialization we need to check before visit to hospital.)   
• Dr. Girish rural psychiatrist (Phone number- 9964161331) is available to diagnose LD challenges in Jayanagar government hospital near the bus depot on Monday and Saturday.
• Shree Ramakrishna samagra kendra (SRSK) in Gottigere is one of the special school near to some government schools which they located in Gottigere and Konanakunte clusters.   

Reflections

During the interaction with one of the four BIERTs in the block, aspects related to their roles and responsibilities, facilities, aids and schemes available to CWSN, efforts taken and underway from the department to sensitize teachers, parents and other stakeholders were discussed.

When asked about the trainings/ awareness sessions by the department, we were informed that it has been conducted for all teachers and that the sessions were held over the course of a month which included different experts being invited to interact with the teachers and brainstorming sessions. However, on further probing of what was covered in the training and whether it also included aspects like signs and symptoms that teachers should look out for to identify learning disabilities, strategies that they can use to teach students with LDs, etc., it was revealed that the training did not delve into these aspects and was a more generic sensitization training about types of disabilities of CWSN and the need and importance of ensuring they are not excluded from the education system. Also, the training sessions were done pre-Covid in 2019 and not in recent times when it would’ve been much more useful and relevant to teachers given the severe impact that the lockdowns and school closures have had on children.

• Focused on severe disabilities and tracking with a few schools that updated in Student Achievement Tracking System(SATS). They are only concerned with children to learn basic self-care skills such as brushing, bathing, and eating.
• Shivanna tracking some students other than LD for getting UDID card to them.
• Not particularly concerned about LD children, and knowledge on the LD is limited.
• As he mentioned he is very sincere in his work to take care of these children, he is not taking any action despite the fact that we informed him about some students who are facing challenges due to LD.
• Lack of knowledge about subject-specific pedagogy and teaching strategies for children with moderate or mild LD and ID. Seem to be no BIERT's professional development trainings on IE.

• Individual education plans (IEPs) for students are useful for tracking them. As we understood from the conversation, BIERT's are untrained and primarily work for the CWSN, and they seem to collect data from schools, much like CRPs

Administrative Support System

School physical infrastructure