Mararikulam south panchayat's Manasa project goes places

Alappuzha: Mararikulam South panchayat’s Manasa project for the children with a learning disability has proven a success in Vithura and Chirayinkeezhu too. The two panchayats in Thiruvananthapuram district replicated it last year rechristening as Thuna or support and reached 1000 primary school students. “They showed 70 percent improvement,” said Dr R. Jayaprakash, a child psychiatrist at SAT Hospital, who coordinates it. They are now planning to propose the state-wide deployment of the project funded by State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT).

Students are categorised into those having mild, moderate and severe disabilities based on their calibre and given single-period special individual training every week. ‘When the academic year was over, we set up an external analysing committee. It randomly selected students to test their level of grasping things. The expert committee had found desirable improvement from ‘mild ‘to ‘moderate’ and ‘severe’ to next higher level’, he said.

The project assumes importance in the backdrop of recent incidents of authorities pushing children to the brink.  Recently a student in Kottayam killed himself after they did not allow him to take SSLC exams to ensure cent percent victory. Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KeSCPCR) has registered many such cases. 

“We hope such students can be identified at an early stage and given training,” he said.     In 2013-14, Mararikulam identified 147 scholastically backward students in four schools in the panchayat and began group counselling for them and their parents.  The project has helped improve learning capabilities of 24.5 percent of children in the panchayat so far. They were having learning disabilities, mental retardation and psycho-socio problems.  “Resource persons periodically visit each household and educate parents on how to create an academic friendly atmosphere at home,” panchayat president Indira Thilakan said.