RAISE rings the bell in Tripura

PRASENJIT SAHA
AGARTALA: March 21, 2018 will be a historic day for Tripura. Courtesy Regional Action for Inclusive Education North-East (RAISE-North East). The organization along with a few selected group of SSA schools organised “Ring the Bell”, a campaign to deal with the growing sound pollution menace.
Organizers told www.assamtimes.org in Agartala, “Ringing The Bell for One Minute and make Noise aims at making the people aware of the importance of Inclusive Education in schools both private and government.”
The programme took place at Nandannagar J B School, SDO Chowmuhuni, Dr. B R Ambedkar High School, Dukli and Janamjay H S School, Belbary as it was jointly organised by Voluntary Health Association of Tripura, Kunjaban, Ferrendo Rehabilitation centre, Nandannagar and Montfort H S School, Champaknagar. School students, Parents, SMC members actively supported by many local leaders and other stockholders were participated during the programme.
SSA officials who participated in the programme dwelt at length the inclusive education, School Heads.
“Our project started in the year 2016, to complement the flagship program of Sarva Siskha Abhiyan (SSA). RAISE-NE has 15 partners in the North-East in 5 states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland and Manipur, who will work directly with the SSA of the respective five states with an objective to make 75 SSA school completely inclusive by 2020,” said an official.
He said,” we        Sensitize the community on the enrolment of children with disability and        Send a 'loud' message to politicians and other influential people to really take action to give children with a disability access to education while the media will also cover the campaign.”
“Creating awareness among teachers to provide equal opportunities for children with disabilities to participate in class room activities and ensure that these children get adequate learning materials is our another laid down goal,” he said.

Another official said, “ we make the authorities of the school initiate the access audits for all children including children with disabilities as well as create awareness to teachers to actively participate in training programmes and workshops organized by government and development organizations on inclusive education.”
According to him, our objective is to ensure that the government officials  shall promote local monitoring committees and school management committees to promote quality education and to oversee timely supply of  teaching learning materials and assistive devices to children with disabilities.

“Others include increasing  enrolment and retention of children with disabilities in mainstream schools, gaining community and parents commitment to ensure inclusive education, ensuring children with disabilities in schools are learning with their peers,” he said.

According to him, they would make the school accessible (Child with disability should be able to access every part of the school) and child friendly apart from ensuring dropouts of children with disabilities in the regular schools due to lack of accessible toilets ramps child friendly classrooms.
The NGO further aims at creating  awareness on inclusive education created among school authorities, teachers, students and the communities.
This is apart from the aim to involve the parents of children with disabilities in the school management committees and promote accessibility for the children with disability.
The school management committee will ensure that counselling and guidance programme for teachers and parents to build positive attitudes towards children with disabilities is timely monitored, said another NGO official.