Special educators’ battle for pay and order continues

Pressing their charter of demands, including seeking appointment orders and pay on a par with middle school teachers, they have been staging protest, which entered the sixth day on Monday, on the Directorate of Public Instruction campus.

These special educators are part of the School Education Department’s inclusive education programme for differently abled students. There are around 2,500 of them to teach around 1.5 lakh disabled students. They are ‘mobile teachers’ who take care of students of different classes in at least two schools every day.

“Even those who have been working since 1998 have been getting only Rs 14,000 as pay,” said S Sethuraman, president of the Tamil Nadu Samagra Shiksha Special Educators Association for the Differently Abled Students (TN-SS-SEADAS).

While the ratio is one teacher for every eight such students in the case of private institutions, it is 1:60 in government schools, he said. In his own case, said Sethuraman, who works in Vaiyampatti in Tiruchy, takes care of 127 students across 38 schools. “The vacancies are also not filled, as the last recruitment was in 2013,” he added.

These special educators also train teachers, parents and other students on handling children with disability, apart from providing home-based training and also grooming the differently-abled children identified for the School Readiness Programme.

“Sometimes we even arrange funds to enable them continue their studies. One of the students whom I taught from Class 1 to 12, has a permanent government job now. While we are happy for them, what about our families,” asked a woman special educator from Thoothukudi.

When contacted, additional State Project Director of Sarva Shiksha Aabhiyan, P Ponnaiah said their demands were under consideration, adding that talks would be held with them soon.