Fresh criticises schools discouraging admissions to students with LDs

Secretary General Foundation for Rehabilitation and Education of Special Children (Fresh) Ashba Kamran has criticised mainstream schools either discouraging admissions to students with learning disabilities (LD) or having a policy against giving admission.
She said 'Education for all' is yet a distant dream and for disabled, it is even more remote in Pakistan. According to her, independent surveys suggest that a very small number of the disabled in Pakistan has had any form of education. She said the number of schools giving admissions to the student with learning disabilities is very low and unfortunately, majority of the mainstream schools having a policy against giving admission.
Ashba said disabilities such as low vision, speech or hearing impairment, locomotors disability including those arising from cerebral palsy and allied disorders, thalassemia, dyslexia and aphasia have been recognised as major form of learning disabilities. She stressed that the Boards of Secondary Education (BSE) in Pakistan should recognise dyslexia as impairment like the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in India.
Secretary Fresh said that Learning Disability (LD) is real and a stumbling block for a nation's development process. She said Learning Disabilities (LD) is "a neurological disorder that affects the brain's ability to receive, process, store and respond to information. The term learning disability is used to describe the seeming unexplained difficulty a person of at least average intelligence has in acquiring basic academic skills". These skills are essential for success at school and at workplace, and for coping with life in general. LD is not a single disorder. It is a term that refers to a group of disorders in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and mathematics, she added.
Ashba said the LD movement in Pakistan is at a very early stage yet and more is needed to be done. She urged the civil society, parents, teachers and media to support the Fresh in spreading the concept of LD across the country.