Dr Amar-Singh HSS said a major reason for such a situation was that “we have an education system that is disabled”.

At an online conference on special needs education, organised by Quest International University he said: “We have a system that does not facilitate children with disabilities to fit in and think. That is our key and persistent problem.”

He suggested several ways to realise inclusive education for the differently-abled.

Among them was to change the education ministry’s Special Education Unit to the Inclusive Education Unit to help shift the focus from giving special education to helping a differently-abled student fit into mainstream education.

There is also a need to incorporate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) from preschool to university level.

“This is the single most important thing. We need to train our teachers in UDL so that teachers will be able to handle a diverse population of students, including the differently-abled and those with behavioural problems.”

UDL is an approach to teaching aimed at meeting the needs of every student in a classroom.

Amar also said to help the education system become more inclusive naturally, it could produce more specially trained teachers and reduce the number of students in a class.

He said there is a danger of the country slipping further behind regional neighbours as the Covid-19 pandemic had led to special needs education taking a huge step back.

Classes that cater to special needs students remained closed, while it was extremely difficult to run online classes for the differently-abled due to the poor concentration levels among such students, he said.

“During the pandemic, special needs children had been marginalised more than children without disabilities.”