Including disabled children in Indian schools, 1790s-1890s: innovations of educational approach and technique.

Abstract

Since Indian antiquity there is documentation of educational practice that sometimes favoured the inclusion of children with impairments. European schools in India, starting c. 1605, brought little recorded innovation until the late 18th century. Admission of a weak‐minded boy to the Madras Military Orphan Asylum by Andrew Bell in the 1790s suggests a new openness in European‐led schools, with later notes of disabled children being casually integrated. Specific techniques for teaching blind children in ordinary schools began at Calcutta in 1840 with Lucas's script, and in the 1860 s Moon's embossed print was popularised by Jane Leupolt at Benares and Agra. Slighter progress occurred in using Sign Language with deaf children until it became the official medium at Florence Swainson's school at ‘Palamcotta, in the 1890 s. As separate special schooling developed, mainly for economic reasons, a century of experience with inclusive schooling from the 1790s to 1890s passed into oblivion.