School of Creative Learning in Patna where the centre will come up. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Sept. 6: Bihar would soon boast of a centre to provide remedial measures for children with learning difficulties.

UK-based Kanka-Gajendra Foundation (KGF) has tied up with India-based Association for Promotion of Creative Learning (APCL) for setting up the centre, which would be the first of its kind in Bihar. Apart from giving funds for setting up the centre, KGF has also provided a corpus fund for running the centre.

The move assumes significance, as according to estimates, 5 to 10 per cent of the children suffer from one or other form of learning difficulty. In majority of these cases, the problems remain undiagnosed for lack of remedial steps. Teachers and parents make the lives of such students miserable, as they fail to identify the root of the problem.

Christened Kanka-Gajendra Centre for Inclusive Learning (KJCIL), the centre would come up on the premises of School of Creative Learning at Nargada village on the outskirts of Patna, which is being run by APCL. On February 3 this year, The Telegraph had carried a report about plans of opening of such a centre in Bihar.

APCL works for promoting creativity and creative learning in society. KGF works for facilitating positive changes in the lives of people through improvement in the areas of education, health, economic self-sustainability and multi-cultural awareness.

To begin with, KJCIL would cater to the needs of students facing learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyscalculia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

“Screening facility to identify the nature of the problem and remedial support would be provided at the centre,” APCL academic consultant Vijoy Prakash told The Telegraph, and added that the centre would also have an evaluation facility using which the impact assessment of counseling sessions would be done.

A 1981 batch Bihar cadre IAS officer, Prakash, who presently holds the post of principal secretary of planning and development department, played a key role in convincing KGF for setting up the centre.

He said the fund for setting up a building for KJCIL has already come and construction work would be complete within six months. “This period would be used to develop the screening material in local language using which the nature of problem facing students with learning difficulties would be identified,” Prakash added.

This period would also be used for creating a pool of trained manpower, which would be equipped with skills to handle students with learning difficulties. A team of special educators and psychologists would impart training to the counsellors who would be deputed at KJCIL.

The KJCIL would not restrict its activities within the centre and rather its ultimate aim would be to reach out to each and every school in the state to help them identify students with learning difficulties and also to suggest remedial measures.

“We would organise camps in different parts of the state for this purpose. The schools would be given the offer of either sending the students to our centre or to get some of their teachers trained by KJCIL and engage them in their own schools to help such students to overcome their problem,” said Prakash, adding that these camps would also help in having a fair idea about the magnitude of learning difficulties facing school students in Bihar.

Apart from reaching out to institutions, the centre would also prepare volunteers, who would be college students, services of whom would be taken in providing help to those students who need special counselling sessions at their homes.