THE PROBLEM OF DISABILITY IN INDIA: HOW TO BE TACKLED
There have been efforts internationally to include children with disabilities in the educational mainstream. Geoff Lindsay (2007:1) suggests that ‘inclusive education/mainstreaming is the key policy objective for education of children and young people with disabilities’. Inclusive education entails ‘increasing the participation of students in, and reducing their exclusion from, the cultures, curricula and communities of local schools.The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (1994) adopted by the World Conference on Special Needs Education paved the way for inclusive education. It upheld the aim of ‘education for all’ by suggesting some foundational changes in programmes and policies of nations. The Statement solicits governments to give the highest priority to making education systems inclusive and adopt the principle of inclusive education as a matter of law or Disability is an important public health problem especially in developing countries like India. The problem will increase in future because of increase in trend of non-communicable diseases and change in age structure with an increase in life expectancy. The issues are different in developed and developing countries, and rehabilitation measures should be targeted according the needs of the disabled with community participation. In India, a majority of the disabled resides in rural areas where accessibility, availability, and utilization of rehabilitation services and its cost-effectiveness are the major issues to be considered. Research on disability burden, appropriate intervention strategies and their implementation to the present context in India is a big challenge. Recent data was collected from Medline and various other sources and analyzed. The paper discusses various issues and challenges related to disability and rehabilitation services in India and emphasize to strengthen health care and service delivery to disabled in the community.