SPECIAL EDUCATION

special education
Special Education, specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs and abilities of disabled or gifted children. Disabled children have conditions that adversely affect their progress in conventional education programs. Gifted children, who demonstrate high capacity in intellectual, creative, or artistic areas, may also fare poorly in regular education programs.

Special education services can help both disabled and gifted children make progress in education programs. Most children served by special education programs are between the ages of 6 and 17.
In the United States, federal law requires states to identify and serve all children with disabilities. Public education and health officials in the United States identified approximately 5.4 million infants, toddlers, children, and youth as disabled in 1994. That same year, the U.S. Department of Education reported that 12.2 percent of all children below the age of 21 received some form of special education. The most frequently reported disabilities are speech or language impairments; mental retardation and other developmental disorders; serious emotional disturbance; and specific learning disorders, such as memory disorders. Other disabilities include hearing, visual, or orthopedic impairments; autism; and traumatic brain injury. An increasing number of children in the United States are identified as having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and receive special education services.

Many schools in the United States provide special education services for gifted children, although federal law does not mandate these services. Gifted children demonstrate exceptionally high abilities in intellectual, creative, academic, leadership, or artistic areas. Estimates of the gifted population in the United States range from 3 to 15 percent of all schoolchildren.

KINDERGARTEN

Kindergarten

Kindergarten, entering-class level of elementary school or the last year of preschool. Kindergarten programs emphasize creative play, social interaction, and natural expression. They also teach social skills and provide children with an academic foundation for first grade.
Kindergarten students are typically four or five years of age. In class, they are introduced to the alphabet, numbers, and colors; they study their bodies, their families, and their communities; they listen to stories read aloud; they make art projects; they participate in skits and dramatic productions; and they learn about holidays, plants, animals, and other topics in science and social studies. Some kindergartens also teach introductory reading and mathematical skills. Kindergartens strive to offer children a foundation for the development of social skills, self-confidence, motivation, and cognition (the process of knowing).

EDUCATION OF GIFTED STUDENTS

Education of Gifted Students

Education of Gifted Students is area in the field of special education concerned with the instruction of students who have exceptionally high abilities. The United States Department of Education describes "giftedness" as exceptionally advanced performance or the potential for outstanding performance in intellectual, creative, leadership, artistic, or specific academic fields. Children who demonstrate outstanding talents come from all social, cultural, and economic groups.

Educators believe that gifted students require special education services because their learning needs differ significantly from those of the general population. They learn more rapidly and are able to understand more abstract and complex ideas. They are also able to transform existing knowledge into new and useful forms, and to create new knowledge recognized for its originality, complexity, and elegance. Special education services and facilities for gifted children may enhance these abilities. In addition, some gifted learners may require special counseling services to address social or emotional adjustment issues that are complicated by their exceptional abilities.

Many regular elementary and secondary schools in the United States offer special programs designed specifically to meet the needs of gifted students. Some schools provide specialized education programs to gifted children exclusively. These schools offer advanced education in mathematics, science, technology, the arts, or other academic disciplines. Many school districts rely on intelligence tests to identify gifted students (see Psychological Testing: Intelligence Tests). However, most guidelines for determining giftedness recommend the use of a combination of standardized test scores (see Standardized Testing), rating systems developed by individual schools, classroom observational records, and performance assessments.
Because definitions of giftedness vary widely, the precise number of gifted students in the United States is difficult to determine. Nevertheless, according to a report of the Council of State Directors of Gifted Programs, 32 states reported providing specialized education services to a total of almost 2.4 million gifted students in 1990. Other states surveyed by the council did not report the number of gifted students served. Some states identified more than 10 percent of students as gifted, while others identified fewer than 5 percent

EDUCATION OF DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING

Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students is specially designed instruction for children who have mild to profound hearing loss or who are deaf. Deafness can be defined two ways, audiologically and culturally. These differing perspectives on deafness often conflict, and they help explain some of the heated controversies that have affected the field of deaf education throughout its history.
Physical, medical, clinical, and educational definitions of deafness and hearing loss are similar. They are based on audiological measurements of an individual’s ability to hear sounds of different levels of pitch and loudness. Specialists compare these measurements with average hearing levels to determine the extent of an individual’s hearing loss.
People are referred to as hard of hearing if their hearing levels are low enough to interfere with basic activities—such as schooling—but not so disabling that they cannot understand speech. Those who have difficulty understanding speech, even with hearing aids, are called deaf. Cultural definitions of deafness, on the other hand, emphasize an individual’s various abilities, use of sign language, and connections with the culturally deaf community. This perspective of deafness does not compare hearing levels. Instead, it views deaf people as being as capable as hearing people, different in the language they use, but not disabled.
Deaf and hard of hearing children often benefit from modifications in their educational environments. Because most children learn the language of their parents simply by hearing it, some deaf and hard of hearing children may struggle to learn spoken languages such as English and may have difficulty speaking clearly. Difficulty with spoken language may also make learning to read and write more challenging. Many of these problems can be avoided by recognizing a hearing loss when it first appears—often right after birth, if the child is born deaf.
If specialists determine hearing loss in a child, changes should be made in the child’s environment to make language accessible to the child at a very young age. Depending on the type and extent of the child’s hearing loss, these environmental changes might include teaching the child’s parents and other caregivers to use sign language or to use cued speech, a system of manually "cueing" sounds that are not visible for speechreading (lipreading). It also might include the use of hearing aids to make speech loud enough for the child to understand it, or surgery to insert cochlear implants, devices for receiving and transmitting information about sounds to the brain. For many deaf and hard of hearing children, however, the discovery of their hearing loss is not early enough to prevent some delay in their acquisition of language. In addition, hearing aids and cochlear implants may not convey sound well enough for some deaf children to understand speech

ILLITERACY THE BIGGEST PROBLEM

Illiteracy The Biggest Broblem

One of the major social problems of Nepal is illiteracy. More than quarter of the worlds adult population is illiterate and millions of children belonging to the third world are not attending school.The number of illiterates is likely to increase in the near future.

The number of lliterate may be increasing according to the figure but the absolute number of illiterates is increasing due to the global rise in population. Womens are seriously affected. They make of about 60% of the illiterates and 98% of the world's illeterates living in third world countries. There is a big link between illeteracy, poverty and development. Recent studies show that in families where the mother has had a few years of schooling, child mortality and malnutrition is low and the farmers who have gone to school produce more from their fields.
Many developing countries have been trying to expand primary education but due to financial and other unforseeing circumstances, this has not been very successful. Than there is the issue of corruption too. Money earmarked for paying the teachers, buying educational materials and other expenses are gobbled by the officials and therefore, education on the whole suffers. This has led to whole generation of people being illeterate and therefore not being qualified for proper jobs.

Another problem that illeteracy has brought about is the internal" brain drain" . This refers to a lot of intelligent young men and women not getting an education and therefore being forced to work as labourers and on to other menial works. We do not know how many futuer stars, professors, scientists and inventors. We have lost to illeteracy. The loss of the country has had to incor is unfathomable.

This is one of the biggest problems of Nepal. The policy makers should go to the remote areas and evaluate the problems, themselves insead of sitting in their offices in Kathmandu and talking through their hats about how good our system of education is. The fool no one and unless some drastic measures are taken to educate all, Nepal will remain, as it hundred years from today.

ADULT EDUCATION

Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. This often happens in the workplace, through 'extension' or 'continuing education' courses at secondary schools, at a college or university. Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers. The practice is also often referred to as 'Training and Development'. It has also been referred to as andragogy (to distinguish it from pedagogy). A difference is made between vocational education, mostly undertaken in workplaces and frequently related to upskilling, and non-formal adult education including learning skills or learning for personal development.

women education

Women Education

Education in Nepal has had, and continues to have,dedicated, talented educators. Yet, reminiscent of a jigsaw puzzle, most but not quite all of the essential pieces of a dynamic education service, are in place.

Empowering women and girls through education

takes more than the pieces, it requires their sensitive,

correct interlocking. It must be holistic.

There have been decades of enlightened policies,

and an amazing list of incentives, designed to

increase girls’ enrolment and achievement. Yet the

impact has been marginal. Either holism was never

achieved or it has been shattered.

The Cheli-beti Programme is reflective of many of

the strengths and strategic weaknesses of education

programming. The Cheli-beti Programme for outof-

school girls, launched in 1981, is considered by

many as one of Asia’s leading success stories in girls’

empowerment. Cheli-beti was shaped by the

participating girls’ needs, songs, and vocabulary. It

triggered the girls’ self-discovery of how to improve

life in their remote rural villages. The end-of-project

evaluation focused on outputs. Since then, Chelibeti

has inspired, and been modified into, Nepal’s

national girls’ out-of-school literacy programme.

However, in the seven years since project completion

there has been no impact evaluation. An assessment

of what is and is not sustainable is essential in

guiding Cheli-beti’s off-shoot programs.