SPECIAL EDUCATOR

SPECIAL EDUCATOR

What is special education?

Qualification?

When does a child need special education?

How do they work?

Where do they work?

What is special education?

Special Education is that component of education which employs special instructional methodology (Remedial Instruction), instructional materials, learning-teaching aids and equipment to meet educational needs of children with specific learning disabilities. Remedial instruction or Remediation aims at improving a skill or ability in a student. Techniques for remedial instruction may include providing more practice or more explanation, repeating information, and devoting more time to working on the skill. For example, a student having a low reading level could be given remediation via one-on-one reading instruction, phonic instruction, or practice in reading aloud.

Qualification?

Any one with a Bachelors degree education who has an aptitude for teaching can join a course on Special Education. There are institutes which offer Bachelors and Masters Program in Special Education. There are many organizations which offer short term programs (2 weeks to 1 month) in Special Education. It is always advisable to join courses of atleast 1 year duration. There are very few institutions offering a 1 year program.

When does a child need special education?

Special education teachers work with children and youths who have a variety of disabilities. A small number of special education teachers work with students with mental retardation or autism, primarily teaching them life skills and basic literacy. However, the majority of special education teachers work with children with mild to moderate disabilities, using the general education curriculum, or modifying it, to meet the child's individual needs. Most special education teachers instruct students at the elementary, middle, and secondary school level, although some teachers work with infants and toddlers. Special educators provide programs for specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, visual impairments, autism, combined deafness and blindness, traumatic brain injury, and other health impairments. Students are classified under one of the categories, and special education teachers are prepared to work with specific groups. Early identification of a child with special needs is an important part of a special education teacher's job. Early intervention is essential in educating children with disabilities.

How do they work?

Special education teachers use various techniques to promote learning. Depending on the disability, teaching methods can include individualized instruction, problem-solving assignments, and small group work. When students need special accommodations in order to take a test, special education teachers see that appropriate ones are provided, such as having the questions read orally or lengthening the time allowed to take the test. Special education teachers help to develop an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each special education student. The IEP sets personalized goals for each student and is tailored to the student's individual needs and ability. Teachers work closely with parents to inform them of their child's progress and suggest techniques to promote learning at home. They are involved in the students' behavioral, social, and academic development, helping the students develop emotionally, feel comfortable in social situations, and be aware of socially acceptable behavior. Special education teachers communicate and work together with parents, social workers, school psychologists, speech therapists, occupational and physical therapists, school administrators, and other teachers.

Special Education can be provided to the child as:

                          (A)   a one to one setting outside or within his/her formal educational environment.

                          (B)   a Pull-out service where special remedial, therapeutic, or enrichment services can be provided to students outside the regular classroom which is referred to as Pull-out services.

An Inclusive Model of education would imply educational provision for individuals with special needs within the educational system where these children study side by side with their mainstream peers, so as to enable them to develop to their full potential. Inclusion is an educational philosophy aimed at "normalizing" special services for which students qualify. Inclusion involves an attempt to provide more of these special services by providing additional aids and support inside the regular classroom, rather than by pulling students out for isolated instruction. Inclusion involves the extension of general education curriculum and goals to students receiving special services. It involves shared responsibility, problem solving, and mutual support among all the staff members who provide services to students. One aim of inclusion is to reduce the removal of students from the regular classroom when the same intent of service can be provided within the regular classroom.

The different areas looked into and modifications incorporated for a child with specific learning needs maybe-

Accommodation: An adjustment made to an environment, situation, or supplies for individual differences.

Adaptation: A change in what students do or a reshaping of the materials students use. Adaptations are essentially the same as modifications, but can specifically refer to the materials and equipment student's use to aid in learning. Enlarging the print on a worksheet and audio taping a textbook are examples of adaptations.

Cognitive learning: The area of learning based on knowledge and reasoning; also called academic learning.

Compensation or compensatory instruction: Instruction aimed at tackling a problem or an area of difficulty. Techniques for compensatory instruction include the use of alternative instruction, alternative techniques, and adaptive equipment.

Co-teaching: An instructional arrangement in which there is more than one adult in a classroom, instructional and classroom responsibilities are defined and assigned, and some type of co-planning is involved.

Individualized education program (plan) (IEP): A written plan of educational goals and objectives for a student. This plan is reviewed and rewritten each year.

Modification: A change in what students do or a reshaping of the materials students use. Reducing the number of questions students must answer at the end of a textbook chapter, allowing a student to answer aloud instead of writing an answer, and allowing the student to do an activity that is different from what the other students are doing are all examples of modifications.

Transition services: Services, training, skills, support, or instruction identified as necessary to help a special education student successfully move from a school setting into a post-secondary setting (i.e., work, job training, technical school, college, military, independent living, semi-independent living).

Where do they work?

There are a variety of facilities in which these professionals work.

Special schools: Mostly you find them working in special schools helping children with the academic skills.

Rehabilitation centre: There are many public/private rehabilitation centres that emply special educators

Private support: In India private practice is very common where many Special educators work independently. They may be working part-time in any of the facilities mentioned above along with private tutoring also.

Economic growth and higher education in India and China.

Economic growth and higher education in India and China.

In the early 1980s, India had quantitatively and qualitatively more infrastructure than China. Until last decade, India’s higher education outperformed its Chinese counterpart — both quantitatively and qualitatively — and China retained its long-term lead in primary education. But the situation is altogether different today, as China now dominates in ‘soft infrastructure’ areas too, which include higher education.

Higher Education development in India and China closely parallels their economic growth over the last couple of decades. Higher education in India struggles with moderate reactive growth, whereas China achieves higher growth and is proactive in its goals; in no small measure, this derives from the fact that the Chinese system is more directly focused on quality than India’s.

China is a unique case in higher education development. In 2010 China achieved a Gross Enrollment Ratio of 30 per cent in higher education, up from an abysmally low 3–4 per cent in 1990. India barely improved its enrollment ratio in the same 20-year period, moving from less than 10 per cent up to 15 per cent enrollment. But these figures are somewhat misleading because they do not clearly show the effects of India’s population, which is younger than China’s. Fifty per cent of India’s population is under 25 years of age and thus has not yet entered the tertiary sector. This is reflected in UNESCO figures (Fig. 2 showing primary level enrollment in India and China 160 million and 100 million in 2010 respectively, and Fig. 4 showing tertiary level enrollment in India and China at 15 million and 30 million in 2010 respectively; and the projections do match with actual, barring primary enrollment in India, which is little less). Effectively, at primary school level enrollments, India has nearly 60 per cent higher enrollment than China, whereas in tertiary level enrollments, India has almost half of those of China.

The implications of a low gross enrollment ratio in tertiary level for a nation as young as India can be significant. The possibility of stalled economic growth is particularly worrying. Gross enrollment ratio for higher education in India is lowest among BRICS economies, and significantly lower than the world average.

The Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012–17) of the statutory body responsible for governing higher education in India opens with: ‘Higher education in India is passing through a phase of unprecedented expansion, marked by an explosion in the volume of students, a substantial expansion in the number of institutions and a quantum jump in the level of public funding’. There is no mention of quality of education here, nor of the fact that this expansion is far outstripped by concurrent expansions in the Chinese higher education sector. This is odd considering that China is increasingly seen both as a key economic rival, and at best as a benchmark, for India.

Should India sacrifice the quality of its higher education to increase its quantity? Judging from the 2006 report of the National Knowledge Commission it appears that higher education is being geared towards producing a large number of graduates rather than high quality graduates. This report suggested that accountability indicators designed to ensure quantity were inhibiting the quality of graduates, particularly in relation to their creative and entrepreneurial skills. The report states that ‘the existing framework, rather than fostering accountability, constrains the supply of good-quality institutions whilst excessively regulating the existing institutions in the wrong places and is not conducive to innovation or creativity’. These findings are backed up by another report, which describes the Indian higher education sector as: ‘Over-regulated and under-governed’. At the same time, quantity expansion has also been grossly inadequate, making the challenges daunting on dual fronts of quantity and quality.

Quality was compromised in China’s massive expansion of higher education as well.  But today there are many more Chinese than Indian universities among the world’s top 200. Chinese secondary school students are exemplary performers in PISA tests while India fares poorly, coming 2nd last among 73 participating nations.

The salient reason for the discrepancy between Chinese and Indian educational performance is the absence of the state from higher education in India. During 2005-06 period, around 52 per cent of Indian students accessed higher education in private colleges, compared to less than 10 per cent in China. In China, government spends more than 1.5 per cent of its GDP on higher education while India spends less than 0.5 per cent. China has grown its higher education sector primarily with the help of universities, which number more than 2300. India has around 600 universities but they have more than 33,000 affiliated colleges. This is the largest number of affiliated colleges in the world, and is 10 times more than that of China. The majority of these universities and colleges in India are private and do not receive financial support from the Indian government.

The trend is even more disturbing. In 2000–01, enrollment in private unaided higher educational institutes was barely 33 per cent which became 52 per cent in 2005–6. The share of private unaided institutes among all higher educational institutes in India had been 33 per cent during 2000–01 period; in 2005–06, it increased to 63 per cent, and as per a recent report, it now stands at 80 per cent. These numbers show that the quantity expansion in India has been achieved by self-finance colleges alone. It effectively means almost all of Government support for higher education is for these 20 per cent of the minority students studying in Government colleges. It is not necessary that these 20 per cent of students, studying higher education in state-aided colleges, necessarily come from poorer backgrounds, or are more meritorious than the other 80 per cent pursuing higher education in self-financed colleges.

This structural anomaly is at the basis of the Indian economy’s lack of scale in production capacity. With so many colleges, monitoring and controlling becomes difficult, which can significantly compromise quality.

The fate of higher education in either country brings to mind China and India’s economic development path. Where China emphasised government-controlled reform and liberalisation, India opted for liberalisation with less government oversight. China continues to see unprecedented expansions in its economic capacity at a time when inadequate capacity remains a major economic bottle-neck for India.

Many scholars and commentators continue to draw comparisons between India and China. But it is increasingly clear that reforms in China and India are drastically different in character and impact. The higher education performance in either country speaks just as loudly as the overall economic picture.