Inclusion a new word, old concept: Ex-NCERT head

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 14

On the fourth day of the workshop on ‘Inclusion: Making it Happen’, Prof Krishna Kumar, former director of the NCERT, and Professor at the Department of Education, Panjab University, delivered a talk on ‘Understanding Inclusion’, which was chaired by Prof Nandita Shukla Singh, Dean, International Students, PU.

He said ‘inclusion’ was a new word but the concept was an old one. “Our Constitution is an example where, without the mention of the word ‘inclusion’; the idea finds expression, for example in ‘Equality and Justice’”.

“Also, child-centered pedagogy is inclusive in nature. But despite this, our system has an exclusionary character, a system which has a tendency to drop many children on the way,” he said.

He explained such exclusion with the help of Social Darwinism.

He said, “In order to effectively implement inclusion, we must break down the nexus of exclusionary categories — be it gender, caste, class, religion, language or any other.”

He further mentioned that “our system follows Social Darwinism”.

Prof JS Saini, former head, National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, conducted a session on assistive technology for persons with hearing and visual impairment.

He shared his lived experiences and challenges he faced for his younger son, who was born deaf.

Prof Priti Arun, joint director, Govt Rehabilitation Institute for Intellectual Disabilities, Sector 31, Chandigarh, chaired the session.

Dr Wasim Ahmed, Assistant Professor from Govt Rehabilitation Institute for Intellectual Disabilities, and Dr Monica Chhabra, senior physiotherapist from PGIMER, made their presentations on assistive technology for persons with intellectual disabilities and on locomotor impair, respectively.