Sign language to be introduced in school curriculum in India

On evening before International Day of Sign Languages, authorities say government's step will give boost to comprehensive education.

NEW DELHI: According to authority figures just 5% of hearing-impaired children get basic education in India, this decision of the governments to take in sign language as part of the school curriculum has been greeted by experts.

According to the survey taken during 2011, there were 5.07 million hearing-impaired students in India, from which, only 1% had the access to standard education.

On evening before the International Day of Sign Languages on Thursday, authorities say the government's decision to introduce Indian Sign Language in the school curriculum will develop convenience and create awareness.

As mentioned in the new national education policy announced in July, the government has designated the ISL a subject now.

“Students can opt to study this. It will promote Indian Sign Language and will help differently-abled people,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while introducing the new policy.

According to the authorities this move would give a lift to comprehensive education besides empowering special needs children to carry their thoughts ably.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also introduced an ISL vocabulary of 10,000 words.

“For a long time, sign languages of persons with hearing disability were not considered a real language. However, with research in the field of linguistics, it has been established that sign language of the persons with a hearing disability are complex grammatical languages which developed naturally when people with hearing disability came together,” said Sharita Sharma, assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Central University of Rajasthan.

Talking to Anadolu Agency, Sharma, a member of the committee from the new education policy, said the sign languages have their grammar and are highly creative.

“Anything communicated in spoken language can be communicated in sign language also. They can be used to teach mathematics, written language, science, and any technical subject. Sign languages all around the world are not the same as there is no universal sign language,” she further added.

There are 142 sign languages across the world.

Nearly 142 different sign languages have been studied around the world. Including Indian Sign Language (ISL), American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL) among others.

Gyanendra Purohit, who runs an NGO Anand Service Society (ASS) for deaf and speech impaired children in India, said that the system so far has been to provide only oral education to deaf children.

Sharma said that the formative years of a child are crucial for the development of cognitive and linguistic skills. She expects that with ISL now part of the curriculum, the deaf children will also get a strong foundation.

“It is therefore imperative during these years that children can access teaching-learning resources as per their learning needs. Before the above efforts, deaf children, teachers, or the deaf parents alike were at a disadvantage as no teaching-learning resources were available in ISL,” she said.