Anandya Niketon: An inclusive school

Rafi Hossain

Shamsi Ara Hasan started her career as a school teacher in England after graduating from the Institute of Education, University of London. She lived in London for about 20 years.

Later in till the late '90s she worked as a Director for Gana Sahajjya Sangstha (GSS). During her work she and her colleagues developed a model in active teaching and learning based on her experience she had gathered in England.

Currently she is involved with Ananda Niketon European School, which was established by her family in 2001.

Case study
Orpita's parents found out that by the time Orpita was supposed to speak, she wasn't and also she was behaving unlike any ordinary child. Orpita's parents, Mr and Mrs Zaman, were very concerned about what to do as she was their first and only child. They took her to different doctors and eventually came to the conclusion that Orpita was a special child. It was obviously very had for them to accept this harsh reality but what was awaiting them was more painful. Also the biggest problem for them was that they couldn't find any school to admit Orpita in.

Shamse Hasan was working with education all through her life and she too has a special child like Orpita in her family. She understands how parents get traumatized in a situation like this and knows the helplessness that engulfs them. Through this situation she came up with an idea of establishing a school which, alongside normal children, would also admit children with disabilities. And with that dream she established Ananda Niketon European School (ANES) in 2001 with a small number of children. However, more special children are being admitted there in recent times compared to the number of normal children. This may be due to the fact that the special children at Ananda Niketon develop in such a way that they are able to later get admitted in normal schools and compete with normal children. Thus, because of this success more special children are getting admitted in her school.

But her concept was to establish a such a school that would accommodate special children, known as an inclusive school. She doesn't have the required space to support the incoming number of normal children along with the special children as more special children are showing up although it is an inclusive school. If other schools support and take care of the special children in a normal way the special ones can also grow up to be a normal person. This is a proven case in this school and many children have been shifted to other schools with the normal ones.

When asked why she thinks that her inclusive schooling method is effective she answered that at ANES quality education means the creation of a learning environment with a choice of activities inside the class room facilitated by an adult. This allows acquisition of the key competencies in language, mathematics, science and technology, and more importantly, problem solving and independent thinking, encouraging children to be creative and able to raise questions.

This arrangement is not very difficult to make. The schools can take in special children and provide a special teacher in the same class for the special child. It has been seen that they learn more from this environment and recover fast also.

Through this environment a level of tolerance is established in the heart of the normal child along with a tendency to help them in the learning process. Through this they can grow up to be better human beings and help each other to further develop the society.

We need to accept these facts and establish the inclusive system of teaching in every school in our country. Not much is required to do so other than tolerant attitude towards the special children and a specially trained teacher in every class room who can help to develop the minds of the children and help them compete with other normal children.

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The author is editor in-charge, Star Insight