Syed Sultan Ahmed

A few years ago, at the end of a film session in a Bengaluru school, a Class 6 boy raised his hand with a question I still carry. We had just watched a short film about a girl who could not hear, and how she navigated a classroom that kept talking past her. “Sir,” he said, “there is a boy in our class who hardly speaks. We thought he was rude. Is it like this for him?” The room went quiet. Nobody had told these children to be kind. A story had simply let them stand, for twelve minutes, inside someone else’s life, and then given them the space to ask what that meant for the boy sitting three rows away.

I recalled that moment when CBSE asked its affiliated schools to screen a 30-minute sensitisation module on Inclusive Education for Children with Special Needs on 7 October, through the Ministry of Education’s PRASHAST portal. It is a welcome step. The module was meant for everyone, from principals and teachers to wardens, aayahs and drivers, an acknowledgement that inclusion belongs to the whole school, not the special educator alone. The Ministry reports participation from more than 60,000 schools, in 12 languages.

But sensitisation can introduce the idea of inclusion. It cannot, by itself, create an inclusive mindset.

Consider a classroom where a child with a disability is always treated kindly, yet rarely chosen for a group activity. Nobody bullies her. Everyone has attended the session. And still, she is left out. We have become reasonably good at teaching children what to say. We have been far less deliberate about changing how they think.

Attitudes are not installed; they are grown, on playgrounds and in friendships. Inclusion that lives in a module stays in the module. Inclusion that lives in routines, in who gets picked for the team, who is asked to read aloud, how a teacher responds when a child takes longer, becomes culture.

So what does sustained practice look like?

First, it is woven into the ordinary school day, not saved for an awareness week. A science project can ask children to design a playground that a wheelchair user, a child with low vision and a child sensitive to noise could all enjoy. Empathy grows fastest when it is a problem to solve, not a rule to memorise. Second, it harnesses story. In my years of working with children and cinema, I have seen visual storytelling do what lectures rarely manage: let a child enter another person’s world. A well-chosen film about a child on the autism spectrum moves understanding from the head to the heart.

Third, it leaves room for talk, because the real learning begins when the film ends. Why did the character feel left out? What could her classmates have done differently? Have we behaved the same way without realising it? Awareness-led instruction tells children what to think. Reflection lets them discover what they actually think. That Class 6 boy did not need a definition. He needed permission to ask.

Fourth, it demands participation, not mere tolerance. There is a world of difference between being allowed into a classroom and being made to feel part of it. Schools can build belonging through mixed-ability teams, buddy systems, performances and sports that offer every child a genuine role, and teachers trained to notice quiet exclusion, not just obvious bullying. Above all, they must listen to children with disabilities and their parents. None of this replaces formal initiatives. Modules like CBSE’s set standards, build a shared vocabulary and signal that the system is serious, in the spirit of NEP 2020’s commitment to equity. But we must not confuse completing an activity with achieving an outcome. A certificate cannot measure empathy. Perhaps we should ask children different questions. Who gets left out in your classroom? Whose voice is rarely heard? Does every child here have someone who makes them feel they belong? Sensitisation takes thirty minutes. The real question is what we do on the 364 days after the screening. Inclusion is not what children know about difference. It is what they do when they encounter it.

(The author is Chairperson, TAISI (The Association of International Schools of India), and Founder & Chief Learner, LXL Ideas)