Aditya Birla Trust to start school for special children

9 April 2014
Mumbai Mirror

To be made conducive for kids with learning disabilities, regular students can also join the NIOS-affiliated school in Fort.

In a bid to c;reate more infrastructure for children with learning disabilities, the Aditya Birla Education Trust has taken over seven storeys of a building near CST railway station to start a school for such kids.

The Aditya Birla Integrated School, which is open to children suffering from dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is said to be the dream project of Mrs. Neerja Birla, wife of Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, AV Birla group of companies.

Mrs. Neerja Birla, chairperson of the Aditya Birla Education Trust, is said to have been working on the project for a while. The building in Fort, which housed a Gujarati school for girls earlier, goes only by the number 162-164 and was taken on rent by the Birla Trust four years ago.

"I've always wanted to start a school for children with special needs. Psychiatrist Zirak Marker, who treats special children, asked me whether I was interested in something like this. We had this place, so everything came together at the right time," she said.

Mrs. Birla added that it will be a regular school affiliated to the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), but with an atmosphere conducive to learning for special children. "We will be charging fees, though a couple of scholarships will be offered. The school will open in the second week of June and timings will be 8.30 am to 2.30 pm. We want to have a low student-teacher ratio. I think we will have 120 to 130 children in all. All seven floors of the building, around 25,000 sq ft, will be used for the school," she said.

The school will offer two education programmes, inclusive and differentiated, depending on the individual student's learning disability. The institute claims it will offer occupational and sensory integration therapy, speech and language therapy, behaviour modification therapy, counselling and psycho therapy and animal-assisted pet therapy.