Nair Hospital seeks to start LD certification centre
Indian Express — November 28, 2007

With over six lakh children appearing for SSC exams every year, almost 5 to 15 per cent of them are dyslexic, say experts. Sion Hospital, the only government-run LD centre in the city, is not able to cope with the huge influx of children seeking LD certification prior to the exams.

Speaking at a learning disability forum organised by Tata Interactive Systems on Tuesday Basanti Roy, director, Jawahar Bal Bhavan, said that there was an urgent need for certification centres. "Certificates sometimes reach children in February, just a month before their exams," said Roy. The conference was attended by school principals, child psychologists, parents, and special educators.

If the state education department accepts the proposal to start a second government-run certification centre at Nair Hospital, the duration to seek certification will decrease, as will the load at Sion Hospital.

"We have sent a proposal to the state education board in Pune. Once it gets clearance, we can take up cases for certification," said Dr Alka Subhramanyam, psychiatrist at Nair Hospital. Nair Hospital is running a remedial centre where dyslexic children from schools-civic and private-are being given remedial treatment. "We wanted to first start with a remedial centre and work towards becoming a certification centre. Now that we have over a 100 children coming for assessment tests every month, we can look forward to certification," said Subhramanyam.

Children availing special concessions have increased. "Four years ago only 95 children appearing for SSC exams availed concessions, now 285 children from Mumbai, Thane and Raighad availed the same," said Roy attributing the increase in number of students to growing awareness.

Many counselors found assessment difficult as children, especially those from regional mediums, found it difficult to answer tests in English. However, SNDT college has now come out with a series of tests in regional languages. Speaking about government initiatives Roy said, "Government has taken few steps under the Sarva Sikhsha Abhiyan-sensitising principals, and involving teachers in identifying slow learners. It has issued several instructions to include LD-related issues in parent-teachers association meetings."

However, the counselors and special educators think the government can do much more than just sensitising principals. "The government has to clearly chalk out concessions and then come down heavily on principals who shun these children," said a special educator from the audience.