Radhika Alkazi on Education for All

Why, despite laws and policies, do so many children with disabilities still struggle to access quality education?
Radhika Alkazi, Founder and Managing Trustee of ASTHA, sheds light on the realities of inclusive education in India in this film – its promises, its gaps, and the urgent need for systemic change. With insights, legal milestones, and critical data, this film unpacks the barriers and solutions shaping the future of education for children with disabilities.
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How would you define the concept of inclusive education?
You know I…I’d like to go back a little, when we started and say at that point of time none of us ever thought that they, our children, children with disabilities have a right to education in the general education system.
So we were very focused on the special education system and we were all working there and trying our best to create quality of education.
But over a period of time as the UN convention and the discussions on the convention, on the rights of persons with disabilities happened, our own views changed.
As we worked further as we worked in communities and we realized that uh our special schools cannot cater we do not want to separate children with disabilities from all other children and thinking changed.
The whole idea of inclusion and rights came into being.
We started thinking about what we call today inclusive education.
Uh the whole idea was and we ourselves in our organization, ASTHA, we used to run a small center for children with multiple disabilities.
And um we changed and then we thought about, after 17 years of running this we shut down our center because we thought our energies should really go in supporting children from communities to go into the government uh school system.
So the government school system, why the government school system, because it’s the largest system of education in our country and therefore the whole idea is that if this system becomes strong and is able to include all children, including children with disabilities, then that’s where the largest number of children with disabilities will go and actually if you look at the data, the largest number of children with disabilities even today in our country actually go to the government schools.
But the whole idea of inclusive education, I, my own thinking is that we have to talk about the right to education for every child.
Because somewhere inclusive education feels like we are fitting a child into a system, that the system has to open up to include the child but when I talk about the right to education for a child with disability I’m saying the system has to be made in a way that this child has the right and can access quality education, so while we do talk about inclusive education and inclusive education should mean all children, from all vulnerabilities.
And that is something because children with disabilities are also part of all other vulnerabilities.
They are the dalit child, they are the poor child, they are part of the class system, the caste system, the different religions in our country.
They are, you know, so we cannot just have, you know, only look at a child on the basis of their impairment.
We have to look at the contexts, that is my learning.
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What do you think are the biggest challenges Indian schools face in implementing inclusive education, and how can these challenges be overcome?
So when we talk about education and the right to education of children with disabilities, I think we have to start with creating a demand for that education.
When I say demand for education, I mean firstly supporting families.
Families, to ensure that their child goes to the school because there are so many barriers right there, getting to the school, the family, the extended family believing that the child has the right to education.
The child actually getting admission which is still a barrier, much easier than before, but getting admission in a school, and then navigating the distance.
In our country, as you know, there are so many different geographies.
Where I work, it’s the slum area.
Now, in these colonies the roads are small and it is extremely difficult for a child using a wheelchair to navigate that road alone and for the mother to take the child every day, to a school where the atmosphere is still not absolutely welcoming.
It may not be hostile but we need our children to be welcomed into schools.
Uh what can the school really do, you know, how do we uh, schools today, because of many uh PILs, there are orders, that there should be special educators in schools, we have a Right to uh Education, uh the Right to Persons with Disabilities Act which has a very strong education section.
But at, as yet, children, the child might get into school at the right age that used to be a big issue earlier, 20 years earlier children would go, come out of their homes and go into schools uh at the age of 10, at the age of 11, today we are seeing children come out at 3, 4, get into school.
So if you get into school in the right moment then you have a higher chance of staying on in school.
But schools as yet, we have to figure out many many things.
For example, the special educator and what is their relationship with the school and with the general educator?
Is the child a part of the classroom or is the child a part of a resource room and is educated separately?
So uh is the child to be part of all the activities that happen in schools?
Very often children with disabilities talk about not being part of, for example, outings, sports events uh, cultural events.
These are very very important things when we talk about inclusion and um because there is a lack of understanding of how to, how to, for example, accommodate and change a little so that this child can participate in the sports or your Sports Day or can go or make the arrangements, safety and security arrangements, so she can go on an outing with other children in, from her class.
These are the things that are really uh big barriers just now in schools and the other big barrier is how do we teach this child.
So the big question which we’ve not answered as yet, the education system is not answered, is how do I educate the child, how do I provide materials that are relevant to her, that are accessible to her.
So for a deaf child going into school or for a blind child being part of a government school and if you don’t have sign language and if you don’t have ways in which the blind child can learn and the materials, then it becomes very difficult.
Or for a child with intellectual disability sitting in class where the teaching is not accommodating her.
These are big issues and today’s schools uh are in my experience which is more in the urban areas um are no longer saying no to the child.
Children are beginning to go there, is a change from 30-20 years earlier, I won’t say that there isn’t and that’s good.
Um but there is still the question of how do I do it and that often, uh very often, you know when the special educators, children with disabilities are asked to come twice a week or thrice a week, those are the big issues that we are still facing in the school system as far as, and particularly the government school system.
The private school system is very different, they do have uh, but then, then their costs are such that many many, the majority of children with disabilities cannot afford the private school.
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Why is inclusive teaching often treated as a separate specialization rather than being integrated as a standard component of education programs?
There has been a longstanding demand from the disability sector that teachers who uh teach all children and who get educated in, and with a B.Ed or an M.Ed, they should know how to teach a child with disabilities because, also, you know, many of the, the strategies that we use are useful for all children.
It’s not, but there is a general perception that the strategies used for children with disabilities are very different from the strategies used for all children.
So I think that understanding and mix, uh sitting and really looking at how we teach, the materials, and how it can be useful for all children, if you teach the same thing in four different ways, all children are likely, including the child with disability, likely to get it far better if, than if you teach it only in one way.
So there has been a long standing demand.
As you know the special educator is uh the courses are, come through the Rehabilitation Council of India and the general teachers are uh have other, you know, the NCTE and others, um institutions through which they get trained.
So that talking together has begun, I won’t say it has not happened, has begun and has started happening so that change is probably on the anvil uh but the demand has been longstanding.
There is much more uh I think um acceptance that general teachers also need to know.
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Could you share insights into the studies or research conducted by ASTHA that have the potential to drive change or assist us in the future?
So uh you know, the question always is why research, because people always say, ‘but nobody reads’, so, but I believe that you know, we are doing things for posterity, and that it’s very important for us not just to be on the ground but to document that, to create evidence because what it helps you do, research and documenting things, it helps you take a step back, look at what you’re see…doing, see what patterns are emerging and then hopefully change according to that.
But um ASTHA, we have been part of these large um groups that have got together over the years, for example the Right to Education forum, the Child Rights forums.
We realize that there’s very little material on children with disabilities and that these large forums never spoke about disability.
So we decided to document and uh I always feel it’s very important to document the status of children with disabilities particularly in education.
Over the years we have documented, we have brought out about six-seven reports on the status of children with disabilities and education and, uh some of these reports we have gone to other states in the country and we, we’ve been able to document the work of uh organizations and the status of the child with disability in different states in our country.
And so for a period of five years I brought out a a report a year on the status of children with disabilities in education which has served to be part of many other larger reports uh very often uh that’s and to, to maybe uh give some information therefore to the larger community of uh uh organizations and people who work on the Right to Education.
Over the years then many other issues also started coming up as we were working.
One of the areas we realized uh was that there are other children, children for example who have long-term illnesses uh like cancer, like juvenile diabetes, these children also have many of the issues that children with disabilities have.
And we ourselves as the disability sector, when we talk about inclusion, need to broaden our horizons and to understand all the other vulnerabilities that are there because only then can we talk of real inclusion.
And so we started documenting what is happening, reaching out to organizations that work with children who have cancer, uh children who have thalasemia, uh children, then of course, children with multiple disabilities in our own organizations and we have put this whole uh, so these are all children requiring long-term medical care.
And what is, what happens to their right of, to education and we realize that for all of them absenteeism is a big issue because very often they have medical issues, they need to go for transfusion, something else is happening, chemotherapy is happening, the child can’t go to school uh so a lot of absenteeism happens um and therefore you know, they kind of go back in class, there are many other effects of medication and many other things.
So we brought out another research study talking about uh the similarities that uh these children, all children, all these children face, uh have in accessing their right to education and this is a small attempt to, to build bridges with other vulnerable communities so that uh the disability sector itself does not remain isolated.
Um so these are some more recently, uh ASTHA took on um a small study uh for uh the Rajive Raturi PIL in the Supreme Court which was on accessibility.
Uh the study which was part of the larger report that Dr Amita Dhanda’s um uh Centre for Disability Studies at NALSAR submitted to the Supreme Court, reached out to 14 States through organizations and each organization um did a questionnaire with their families and parents of children with regard to their issues and barriers in accessing the Right to Education and schools.
So this is another study that is very recent and which tells us all the different kinds of issues that kids with disabilities are facing in the school system.
As you know, after the report, the CDS report was submitted, on perhaps the last day of Justice Chandrachud’s tenure as CJI, we got a very good judgment which includes uh, which talks about creating those guidelines, the non-negotiable guidelines for accessibility in all the areas.
Uh and this is a large task uh for the sector as well as for the government and we hope that the sector and the government can work together and the voices of people with disabilities and children with disabilities and their experiences, their life experiences will be heard in framing these guidelines.
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If you had the opportunity to implement a single policy for disability inclusion without any constraints, what would you prioritize?
I would prioritize supports in the communities for children and people with disabilities and their families.
Why am I saying that when I say “supports” I mean, services need to be right there for them.
And uh services, services for all people need to be inclusive of all children and people with disabilities, because our biggest barriers are, you cannot, if you cannot access, if your community, where you’re living, the services there are not open to you, you are constantly being pushed back into the home.
So I would prioritize having, for example, health services close to where the child lives.
Rehabilitation services, any other, the ability to go to a shop, the ability to access a playground, all the things that are there in the community, I would put together those supports in the community for children and people with disabilities.
And that’s already part of our law, so I would just implement that part of the law.