Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation established the Education and Training Institute for the differently-abled to provide special education and capacity building training to ensure their integration in the mainstream.

 

 In order to respond to the special needs of children with different abilities (CWDAs), the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation started the Education and Training Centre for Children With Different Abilities (ETC). The objective of the ETC is to facilitate the process of making persons with different abilities contributing members of the society and empower them to live life with dignity. It also works towards mainstreaming of People With Different Abilities through protection of their rights and by undertaking various integrative rehabilitation measures.

The ETC is a unique programme that serves as a one stop centre for education and capacity building of CWDAs. Instead of having a general school for the disabled, the centre designed customised educational programmes to respond to special needs of different disabilities such as hearing impairment and intellectual impairment. ETC also has various units such as integration unit, inclusive unit, remedial unit that caters to various levels of requirements of CWDAs.

The main objective of the programme is to facilitate mainstreaming of CWDAs. Therefore, various schools and units work towards ensuring socio-psychological, educational, medical and economic rehabilitation of the children. As part of these rehabilitation measures ETC trains parents to understand the needs of CWDAs and conducts medical camps for diagnosis of children to ensure early intervention. ETC offers pre-vocational courses to provide training to children between the ages of 14-18 in the areas of their interest.

ETC ensures quality in service delivery through regular innovative capacity building measures for the staff. The processes of service delivery have clearly measureable indicators to ensure efficiency and satisfaction of the stakeholders. Approximately 1000 persons with different abilities are getting direct benefits per annum through the ETC and a total 350 students with various disabilities are receiving special education.

This case study was published in September 2011.

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