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Since Sense International (India)’s intervention in 1997 with local organisations in India, awareness about deafblindness has increased significantly. As a result there are many organisations in the field of deafness and blindness throughout India that wish to set up education programmes for deafblind children. However, there was a severe lack of trained specialist teachers in deafblindness. There was an urgent need to develop human resources through the professional training of teachers in this field.
The Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Deafblind has pioneered deafblind education in India and Asia for over more than 20 years. Consequently, with the objectives to expand the pool of professionally trained teachers in deafblindness throughout India and in order to provide greater support and opportunities for deafblind children, the first ever Teacher Training Course approved on 10th March 2000 by the Rehabilitation Council of India (Statutory body under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment). It is a one year course on “Diploma in Special Education (Deafblindness)”. The first batch started on 1st July 2000 at The Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Deafblind, Mumbai with ten trainees.
The need was felt that there are still not enough services in southern India and no teacher training course in the southern part of the country. The Clarke School for the Deaf and Mentally Retarded contacted Sense International (India) for support in extending its services to deafblind children and for initiating a Teacher Training Course for the southern region. With the long term aim to improve the quality of life and access to support for deafblind children and to expand the pool of professionally trained teachers in deafblindness in southern India, so as to extend the model of good practice for replication in other states of India, the second teacher training course was started at Clarke School for the Deaf and Mentally Retarded at Chennai with the support of Sense International (India).
After the completion of the course the teacher trainees who would subsequently either establish new deafblind units within their respective organisations or deliver professional education to deafblind students in existing centres. These trainees are now a part of different deafblind programmes in different models such as Community Based Rehabilitation, Day Care Centres, Vocational Training Centres and Home Based Programmes. Experience shows that their respective organisations have been very positive about the skills of these trainees as they are the first of appropriately qualified teachers. Both the courses have met the essential need of trained human resources on deafblindness in the country. The initiative of starting a recognized course on deafblindness in the country has also given the relevant statutory bodies an opportunity to act and the result has been very satisfactory as deafblindness has become a better known term in the country.
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Registered under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950.
Registration No: E/11279/Ahmedabad
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