Bharti Kaushik

Dr Bharti Kaushik, Associate Professor, Department of Education of Groups with Special Needs (DEGSN), National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), is postgraduate in physcs and PhD in education from Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi. The title of her PhD thesis was Inclusive Education in Primary Schools:From Resistance to Reality. She joined Regional Institute of Education (RIE), Bhopal, in 2002 as an assistant professor. Her early duties involved teaching courses associated with inclusive education, CWSN and mental health to students pursuing bachelor in education (BEd) and master’s in education (MEd), as well as postgraduate diploma in guidance and counselling courses from RIE, Bhopal. During her tenure at RIE, Bhopal, she guided MEd dissertations and also acted as a university examiner for Bed students. Upon her transfer to Delhi, in DEGSN, she organized many orientation programmes for teacher educators on the issues and concerns associated with the education of children with special educational needs via distance learning by using the NCERT EDUSAT network and also face to face. She has acted as a resource person for various in-service training programmes organized by institutions such as National Institute for the Visually Handicapped, RIEs, Colleges of Teacher Education, State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and District Institutes for Education and Training. She has presented papers in various national and international seminars and conferences. ‘Inclusive education in India: Assessing the systemic readiness!’, ‘Learner’s attainment reports at pre-primary level: An analysis from the perspective of inclusive education’, ‘Creating data based training needs profile of primary schools in inclusive education’ and ‘Participatory approach to in-service teacher training of “resource teachers” in India’ are some of her recent research-based publications in Indian and international journals. She has co-authored a book titled Teachers Creating Inclusive Classrooms: Issues and Challenges.

Recently, she has prepared guidelines for making pre-service teacher education inclusive and developed a handbook for regular teachers suggesting strategies for including children with autism in the classrooms. Currently, she is working on making science classrooms and laboratories inclusive for children with visual impairment.