Kids with special needs: HC asks schools to provide details

The Delhi High Court today asked private unaided schools here to provide the city government with all details about facilities available in their institutions to cater to children with special needs.
A bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Vipin Sanghi said the Directorate of Education (DoE) of the Delhi government shall file an affidavit before January 14, disclosing the status with regard to facilities available in all the unaided schools.
Meanwhile, the court cautioned the school authorities that action may be taken against them for not giving the mandatory information asked for by the Delhi government's education department.
"Counsel for the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) stated that most of the unaided schools are not responding to questions addressed to them in respect of the facilities available to differently abled children for the purposes of admission.

"GNCTD shall ensure that information is made available in a time-bound manner and issue instructions in this regard under Rule 43 of the Delhi School Education Rules...," the court said, adding that "it is mandatory for all the schools to provide information".
During the hearing, the court also pulled up the city government for not providing information after it was told by the amicus curiea that "DoE has data with regard to the children with special needs".

The amicus said that Unified District Information System for Education, which works for DoE, collects data every year from all schools and provides the same to it.

Following this submission, the court directed DoE to provide all data it has with regard to the issue.
The court was hearing a contempt plea filed by Pramod Arora, father of a differently abled child, challenging the Lt Governor's nursery admission guidelines which clubbed children with special needs with kids belonging economically weaker section category.