The school administration maintains it is in no position to admit more children in the region’s only residential school meant for the hearing impaired at least for now as it has been operating way beyond its capacity. Though supposed to provide for 40 students, it has been accommodating 26 students, all for free, according to the school authorities.
Understandably, the guardians like Purna Bahadur Majhi of Bhimeswor VDC, who failed to have his son enrolled despite “repeated requests”, won’t buy the school’s argument, nor would they listen to the school principal Narayan Baral’s reasoning that the institution lacks enough teachers to cater to the students. They accuse the school, which has only four teachers and not enough infrastructure, of playing with the future of many differently-abled students by refusing to enrol them.
Students from Sindhuli, Udayapur, Sarlahi, Dhanusha, Mahottari and Ramechhap districts have been studying in the school, which gets assistance from the Federation of Hearing Impaired and the District Education Office.
Special Education rules have it that there should be one teacher for every 10 hearing-impaired and other students with similar needs, but these provisions remain on paper for this school, which, according to the school principal Narayan Baral, has been teaching students of two different grades in a single room.
Bijaya Lama, a teacher, says teaching the hearing impaired is not easy.
source: The HImalayan times
