Educating Persons with Disabilities: An Achievement Some Insights from Census Data

Abstract

United Nations estimated that nearly 10 percent of world population suffers disabilities of one or the other types and proportion is more in the case of underdeveloped counties. If we accept these estimates, populations of person with disabilities in India can be estimated to be more than 10 crore, which is higher than total population of many counties of the world. Rehabilitation of such a large number of persons with disabilities is really a gigantic task. Considering the diversity of persons with disabilities in terms of different types of disabilities, their residence, severity of disabilities etc, work of rehabilitation seems even more difficult. In absence of proper rehabilitation strategies adopted by the state, disability becomes burden on the society, but if it is properly managed, it can turn into useful assets for the nation. There are many dimensions of rehabilitation including physical, psychological, social, and vocational rehabilitation. Present paper aims at analyzing the literacy rate among persons with disabilities and attributing it to the efforts on the part of the government and non-governmental organisations working for persons with disabilities. The results of Census of India 2001 are analysed to know the level of literacy among persons with disabilities as compared to their non-disabled counterparts. Positive difference if any is attributed to schemes and policies of the government and efforts on the part of non-governmental organizations. Paper is divided in six parts. First part is by way of introduction. Second part deals with the definitional aspect of disabilities and literacy and third part explains the literacy rate among disabled and non-disabled. Fourth part covers the literacy rate among different categories of disabled and fifth part deals with sex differentials of literacy rates. Final part concludes the paper with probable suggestion for government and non-governmental organization.