Indian education is 'exclusive' education, said Professor Marmar Mukhopadhyay, Director, Educational Technology and Management Academy, Delhi and ex-director of National Institution of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) at the international convention on Inclusive Education that started in the city on Monday. The convention organized the Delhi Public School, Gandhinagar in association with DPS society witnessed participation from teachers and principals from across the country and focussed and aimed at bringing about awareness and acceptance of the special children in the mainstream. Speaking of 'How inclusive is inclusive education', professor Mukhopadhyay threw light on issues prevailing in Indian education system. Voicing his concern about how non-questioning is the biggest problem in our country, he said, "Naughtiness is natural and we should encourage naughtiness and not treat it as a problem. We cannot have separate sections for economically weaker section children or special children. It cannot be in the name of integration, segregation but inclusion." "Indian education is exclusive education as it focusses on curriculum, textbooks, leaving assessment, ambience and management, etc. National education policy is not moving as there is a mismatch between policies coming from political space and education space. No detention policy was a case of inclusive education. A child needs to study at least for four years to achieve literacy but it failed as we did not interpret it better. Those who discarded Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) discarded education, he said. He said, "85% teachers in schools are women including principals. But look at their staff rooms and washrooms and you will realize there is no sensitivity in us. Why cannot we have a desk for teachers in staff rooms, why is the washroom located at a distance? Look at names in examples given in textbooks. How ma-ny are Hindu names, how ma-ny are males/females in a textbook? We do have smart boards and smart classroom but what about a smart teacher? A teacher makes a class smart not smart board. There is a missing roadmap for minority communities, girls, SC/ST and children with disability. Another major concern is the exclusion of parents. Not many schools are tolerant to parents. While parents have all responsibility ranging from paying fees to getting homework finished, they do not have any rights. "Gujarat education system is theoretical and hence it is not doing better. If they make it functional, it will do better. Why did Modiji have to bring Vaanche Gujarat, Ramshe Gujarat? Because people here do not read or play. We do not need the different curriculum for urban and rural but we need a rural-oriented curriculum which is very valid for urban setup," he said. Speaking about Saraansh, Apoorva Goenka, Managing Trustee, DPS Gandhinagar said, education and social inclusion of children with diverse backgrounds and abilities remains one of the main challenges. A year and a half ago, we had started Saraansh with only a few children but now we have nearly 60 students at Saraansh.."

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