Satya Special School

Vision: An inclusive tomorrow

Mission: To empower people with special needs and lead the way towards inclusion in education, employment, and society by specialized intervention, rehabilitation, capacity building, and public policy advocacy thereby eradicating the stigma associated with disability.

Values

Transparency: Our interactions are open to scrutiny and built on trust and accountability. We believe in honesty to ourselves and others.

Professionalism and compassion: We promote opportunities for all individuals to develop and achieve their fullest potential through continuous learning and upgrading skills.

Diversity and inclusivity: Be inclusive and respect differences thus being open and non- judgmental. Value the unique potential of everyone and treat them with dignity.

Excellence: We strive for Quality and Excellence in our work with purpose and enthusiasm. Demonstrate integrity and dedication through teamwork among all staff and various stakeholders.

Location: The inclusive Education program of Satya Special School is implemented in rural and urban areas of Puducherry and Karaikkal districts of Puducherry Union Territory: Villupuram, Cuddalore, Thindivanam, and Marakkanam and neighboring districts of Tamil Nadu.

The WIPRO-funded project is being implemented in the Puducherry and Karaikkal districts of the Puducherry Union Territory. In addition to mainstream schools, as part of the project, A School Readiness Prog is implemented in 3 Satya Village Centers – Villianur, Seliamedu, and Muttrampet to prepare rural children with special needs to be included in mainstream schools.

Project updates

The WIPRO project is implemented to strengthen the special education component of Satya to become an Inclusive education program. The interventions start from preparing the CWSN eligible for mainstreaming through a school readiness program, establishing an inclusive classroom in the main school premises, providing support for special educators in the inclusive classroom and training the government teachers, and integrating special children with the neurotypical children in all possible ways.

Learnings and challenges

Satya has learned how to work with government school headmasters/headmistress and their expectations of Inclusion. Our team is managing to handle this by showcasing all sorts of positive integration of CWSN with mainstream teachers and children. There is a high need for remedial education for mainstream children due to the learning loss during COVID-19. So, our project design also includes conducting remedial education for children with learning difficulties. The major challenge in implementation is the nonavailability of necessary infrastructure inside the school for either the remedial or the inclusive classrooms.

Assessment of the children in mainstream school is done in different periods and intervention is not initiated in all schools simultaneously. So, analysing the intervention’s progress due to inclusive education or remedial programs is becoming a challenge.

To address the therapeutic needs of the children enrolled in mainstream school based on their preference and accessibility. Currently, they are coming to Satya once a week. We need to develop some mechanisms to cater to this need.

Plans for next 1-3 years

Educational:

• Strengthening the capacity of mainstream schoolteachers
• Standardize the manuals for school readiness programs and school curricula

Operational:

• Implementing remedial education and inclusive education programs simultaneously in all five schools.
• Develop strategies for CWSN in the inclusive classroom to shift to the mainstream classroom.
• Developing alternative assessment tools to assess the learning abilities of the children impacted by our project.
• Home-based intervention through mobile therapy unit for the children who enrolled in mainstream school and could not get services for therapeutic needs and drop out of school.

Organizational:

• Appointment of a Full Time Chief Operational Officer for smooth succession and day- to-day operations