This month the Mumbai High Court directed all schools in Maharashtra to abide strictly to new guidelines for students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing) and dyscalcula (mathematics). To make sure that there is total compliance to the guidelines, the court said that any school that failed to provide facilities to such students could face contempt of court. The court ruled that once it is established that the child has one of these conditions the school is bound to provide facilities to the students free of cost. It also makes it ‘mandatory’ for all Maharashtra schools to screen children who fail to do well in examinations at classes 3 and 6. 

 

Because dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalcula, are incurable, the child will never be able to perform like a child without these disabilities, but there are learning interventions that can be introduced to alleviate the childrens’ disadvantage. The court has ruled that schools have to give added help/resources to those children to mitigate their disability.

 

The bad news is that schools who have been resisting exams for young children will now have to hold exams for all children in class three, and there will also be pressure on them to send all children who do not do well in exams to a qualified psychologist to be tested for these cognitive learning disorders.

 

At present large numbers of children are being labeled by untrained educators as ‘dyslexic’ when they have problems with reading and writing that not connected with a cognitive disabilities.  A child is bored and does not pay attention, or has not been taught to sequence properly, or has not been taught how to concentrate, or has a low IQ, and teachers (and many parents) are quick to a label them ‘dyslexic’.  This ruling should stop that situation occurring since these cognitive conditions will now be subject to specialized professional expertise and diagnostics. 

 

The good news is that this ruling is another small step towards making schools provide education and facilities for children that meets the child’s needs regardless of their abilities. It opens the door for other challenges to our schooling system.

 

Now it can be argued that if schools have to provide special education for those with these ‘learning disabilities’, they should also have to provide education to suit the needs of other educationally disadvantaged pupils. It will not be long before someone successfully argues that children with memory, dexterity, social, or bad parenting problems should also be given education and schooling resources to meet their needs. 

 

With this ruling, schools in Maharashtra will continue to move away from our ‘fit the child into the system’ approach and towards fitting education to the child’s abilities and needs. It is a significant shift away from an education system that was originally designed to progressively exclude the many, and include only the privileged few. It is progress on the path of making schooling more of an aid to the development of the child, and not the insurmountable hurdle that it is designed to be for most.  It is sign of progress towards introducing ‘child centred’ education into India, and as such it is very welcome. Let us hope these guidelines are adopted across the country.