China.org.cn
21st March 2023
Tibet Story. Special education opens window for students with disabilities
Kuru, 27, has walked with difficulty since she was born, but it has not held her back in pursuing her career goals.
During classes, she likes telling her students, who also have disabilities, the classic fable "The Tortoise and the Hare," which tells the story of an overconfident hare who loses a race against a slow-moving tortoise.
"In the story, the tortoise eventually won, and I hope that you can learn from it. Let's take one step at a time, walk slowly but persistently," she said.
Kuru is an art teacher at the Nagqu Special Education School in the city of Nagqu, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. Established in 2013, the school was the first of its kind in Nagqu, providing nine-year compulsory education for children with various types of disabilities, such as visual impairment, deafness and intellectual disabilities.
With the governments at various levels in Tibet attaching more importance to special education, combined with the efforts made by teachers like Kuru, more and more children with disabilities in Tibet are receiving the education they need and enjoying a more colorful life.
In 2022, 1,057 disabled students were studying in seven special education schools in Tibet, while some 4,600 disabled students were studying in ordinary schools. The enrollment rate of disabled students during the compulsory education period remained above 97 percent, according to the Tibet Disabled Persons' Federation.