Merely a 10-minute walk, for Bhoydyo, however, it takes more than 30 minutes to reach her school. But the 16-year-old who suffers from cerebral palsy, a group of disorders that affects body movements, balance and posture, prefers to walk regardless of the time it takes and the efforts she has to make.[break]
Now a student in the seventh grade, she attends classes regularly and is fond of studying. She’s one of the many students with disabilities who have been integrated into some 100 public and private schools in Bhaktapur District.
While Bhaktapur paints a positive story with 86% of children with disability having access to education, according to a report published by Community-Based Rehabilitation Center Bhaktapur along with Women and Children’s Office, the national statistics are grim.
According to a November 2009 report published by the Ministry of Education, only 68,306 children with disabilities are enrolled in school. There is no concrete data on the number of children with disabilities in Nepal; the only reliable data is that from the government’s 2001 survey, which records 207,000 children with disabilities.
In a country like Nepal, where a chunk of its population is still enrooted in conservative beliefs, disability is linked as a result of an ill deed in one’s past life. Children with disabilities still face negative attitude in the society, are considered non-productive and denied their basic human rights, including education.
As per the latest Human Rights Watch report released in August, 53,681 children with various disabilities attend primary schools, 14,625 are enrolled in lower secondary levels and 68,306 avail of basic education.
Shantha Rau Barriga, researcher and advocate on disability rights at Human Rights Watch (HRW), says that children with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual disabilities, are obstructed from access to education and are locked up in homes as parents have other responsibilities and aren’t getting any government support.
“It is true that the government has an inclusive education policy, but in practice it is something quite different,” Barriga writes in an e-mail to The Week from New York where she is based.
AN INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
It was in 2006 that the Government of Nepal introduced an inclusive education system ensuring free education for all children and allocating resource classes for children with disability.
According to the HRW report that cites a 2009 annual report of the Nepal Association of the Blind, there are 360 integrated resource classes: 164 for the deaf, 78 for blind, and 118 for children with intellectual disabilities.
The budget allocated by the Ministry of Education for inclusive education and special education stands at Rs 160 million for the Fiscal Year 2010-11.
But people like Mukunda Dahal, a parent of an autistic daughter and also the President of the Intellectually Disabled Parents’ Association, say that though the policy on inclusive education exists, it’s not being implemented.
“Even today, if an intellectually disabled child goes to school, the situation isn’t suitable,” says Dahal whose 14-year-old daughter goes to a daycare center. “There isn’t even a suitable curriculum or an educational policy for them.”
He further says that there should be a “flexible, need-based education” catering to children with different kinds of disabilities.
Jaya Prasad Lamsal, Under-Secretary at the Inclusive Education Unit under the Ministry of Education’s Department of Education, says that under the inclusive education system, the government has a uniform curriculum for all.
However, for special schools that cater to children with disabilities, and especially intellectual disabilities, Lamsal says the obvious: “A need-based curriculum can be made for special schools. We’re thinking about that.”
But at a time when the government is focusing on inclusive education and is targeting free education for children with disabilities by 2012, Birendra Pokhrel, President of the National Federation for the Disabled Nepal, questions the entire approach.
When children with disabilities, especially in rural areas with rigid topography, can’t reach schools because of geographic barriers, Pokhrel asks, how can they be in a classroom and then learn?
“We say inclusive education should be promoted but its model as well as theory and principles should be made in terms of Nepal’s country perspectives,” he says.
And that’s what’s lacking, according to Bidhya Nath Koirala, education expert and Head of Department of Tribhuvan University’s Master of Philosophy program.
He points that it’s not enough that schools are disabled-friendly. “The focus should be on the surroundings and environment outside the school,” he talks of the difficulties for children with disabilities to come to school in the first place. Speaking of the inclusive education system, he says that the country has “either inclusion or seclusion, and both are wrong.”
“There should be special schools, and such children should be integrated with other schools,” says Koirala who has been researching many educational aspects, including education for the disabled, since 1981.
SCHOOLS OF POSSIBILITIES
In an inclusive education system, all students are enrolled in the same school and attend classes together, regardless of their disabilities.
Outside Kathmandu District, in Bhaktapur District, along the Hanumante River, Sooryodaya Secondary School is one such education institution. In classrooms amid and overlooking the cornfields, children with disabilities are integrated with other children.
In classrooms, from playgroups to the eighth grade, students in wheelchairs and some with other physical disabilities study together.
Achut Prajapati, principal of the school, as he makes a tour around the classes, says “It’s not been an easy task.”
Four years ago, when he decided to admit children with physical disabilities, some parents protested, and some teachers were hesitant. But the principal stood by his decision and gave orientation classes to teachers and also parents.
Currently, there are 16 children with various physical disabilities in his school. As some occupy the first rows, a student in the eighth grade sits in her wheelchair while students at lower grades mingle with their classmates.
“We shouldn’t ignore their right to education,” Prajapati says. “If we’re talking about inclusive education, as educational institutions, we must also practice it.”
Noting the level of education of his students, Prajapati says 40% of them are very good and it’s just five to 10% of them have problems due to their physical disabilities.
Sooryodaya is also one of the few schools that have a disabled-friendly infrastructure as well. The school has a wheelchair-access ramp and has recently made a toilet that’s handicapped-friendly.
But just 10 minutes away from Sooryodaya, at Wiseland Secondary School, where Bhoydyo goes to, though the infrastructure isn’t friendly to her, the environment is. Her teachers speak of her ability to study despite her disability; they talk of her determination to study.
“They aren’t intellectually disabled. So as teachers, if we try a little harder, they can achieve,” says Ukesh Kawan, one of Bhoydyo’s teacher, as he flips through his student’s notebooks and shows her work.
At the Susta Manasthiti Bal Kalyan Vidyalaya in Kirtipur, the teachers and students believe the same.
In a small classroom, eight students, all of them intellectually disabled, sit and learn as their teacher uses hand gestures and songs to teach them.
According to Nira Shrestha, principal of the school for 20 years, the education they provide – which doesn’t follow the government’s curriculum since there is none for such children with disabilities – enables them to read and write and know basics like their names, phone numbers, days of the weeks and festivals. Gaining such knowledge motivates them to move forward.“It helps them realize that they’re also a part of the society,” she says.
But while the school is trying to bring some changes into the students’ lives, the school itself is handicapped in terms of infrastructure. Situated within the premises of Gorakhnath Secondary School, it lacks the basics of any school for disabled children: wheelchair access and proper bathroom facilities.
However, as conversations on inclusive education, and also formal education and vocational trainings for children with disability dominate discussions, Dahal, also a parent of an autistic child, makes a valid point on what education means to children with different disabilities.
“Even to teach someone how to eat and swallow, how to wear clothes and cross the street is an aspect of education,” he says. “But we’re only confined to the notion that education is only academic and that too is acquired only inside classrooms.”
A CHANGING SPECTRUM
While some schools have accepted children with disability, the case isn’t the same everywhere.
For Bishnu Prasad Bhushal, who also suffers from cerebral palsy, going to a “regular school” in Arghakhanchi District wasn’t easy. Since he couldn’t walk, the 25-year-old and a Master’s degree student at Tribhuvan University, says he had to be carried to school for two hours.
“People said I was useless, so why did my parents even bother to send me to school?” he says of the social stigma attached to disability. “Also, in school, people teased me.”
But despite all that, and help from some of his teachers and parents, Bhushal passed his School Leaving Certificate in 2003, came to Kathmandu and attended United Academy in Kumaripati. He later joined St. Xavier’s College to complete his Bachelor’s in Information Management and also Campion College to do his Bachelor’s in Arts consecutively.
While Bhushal faced discrimination from some of his classmates in Kathmandu too, he says it didn’t deter from attaining his educational objectives.
In Kirtipur, too, Shrestha notes that the society and also families have a positive attitude to children with disabilities now, compared to two decades ago when she was mocked for being a “teacher of the crazy.”
Reminiscing of the 1980s when she walked around houses, looking for children with disabilities and convincing parents to send them to school, the principal says the effort has to start from the community level.
Surya Bhakta Prajapati, Director of Resources Center for Rehabilitation and Development, says he can’t agree more. Established in 1997, the Center has been working to mainstreaming disability in development by improving their functional abilities, to begin with. It actively promotes mainstreaming children with disabilities in local schools, and its work in Bhaktapur is a prime example.
According to him, in the past 25 years, some 800 children with disabilities have been integrated in about 100 local schools in their peripheries; 86% of the children with disabilities have access to education in the district.
At the same time, Prajapati doesn’t hold back from blaming the government though he thinks that its inclusive education policy is good.
“Any disabled child should be prepared to go to school first,” he says of how it should be started from and at the community level. “However, I don’t think there is such a process at the government level.”
FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
With a formal education and the skills required, it wouldn’t be difficult for a disabled person to get a job, says Pokhrel, President of the National Federation for the Disabled Nepal, who himself is visually impaired but has been working actively.
“If they have the quality, they will be hired. But you can’t just expect them to be hired because they are disabled,” he makes a point.
In Kathmandu, people with different disabilities are seen working: some of the privately-owned parking lots, Kathmandu Model Hospital, and The Bakery Café chains being the prime places.
Jwolit Budhathoki, Managing Director of Artus Group, a management consultant firm that also looks after recruiting, also shares his experience on this topic.
Over the time, he says that his firm has received two applications from people with disabilities—both with exceptional educational quality. However, one of them was disqualified since he didn’t fit the job description while the other faced the job interview but couldn’t cut through the competition.
“Companies are willing to hire people with disabilities [with the right skills and education],” Budhathoki says. “But their disability shouldn’t affect the day-to-day operations of the company. And of course, discrimination is against the law.”
And people like Pokhrel, Bhushal and Bhoydyo are the evidences of gainful usefulness. Bhushal, who currently is President of the National Self Advocacy Society Nepal, despite his cerebral palsy, reiterates that disability shouldn’t deter one’s determination. He also teaches computer science at SANN International College in Kathmandu.
In a slight stammer, as his shaky hands try to reach out for his academic certificates, he says, “I’m like this. But I want to tell people that they can accomplish despite all this.”
And despite her disabilities, Bhoydyo, who can’t even move properly or can speak clearly, is dogged to make her mark. Regarding her expressions and the ability to express them, her principal at the school, Asha Kumar Chiklanbanjar, says she could be the next Jhamak Kumari Ghimire, winner of this year’s Madan Puraskar, one of Nepal’s highest literary genre awards, despite suffering from cerebral palsy.
In her small room crowded with a bed, computer and a small radio, Bhoydyo is surrounded by stacks of books and notebooks. Her uniform is hung on the wall as she misses school. She digs amid a pile of notebooks under her bed and flips through the pages of one of them: It’s a literary expression of her feelings on disability and of disabled people.
Her writing in Nepali—scribbled yet understandable— reflects her sorrows, but at the same time, it gives a notion of the belief she has and the confidence that her disability wouldn’t cast shadow on her future.
In one of her lines, she writes: “I wanted to walk so I could go to school.”
Related story
Govt urged not to reduce reservation quota for disabled
