Prof Dr Azhar Rizvi Remedial Centre opens doors

Centre will provide support to parents of children with special needs

KARACHI: Parents of differently-abled children need not to worry any more as Karachi University's (KU) faculty of education has established a remedial centre to help parents and professionals with children with special needs.

The remedial centre, named after educationist Prof Dr Azhar Rizvi, will provide assessment, guidance and remedial teaching as well as referral facilities. Dr Rizvi has taught hundreds of PhD scholars as well as published an education journal, books and other works in the field of education.



At the inauguration ceremony, Dr Shagufta Shahzadi, dean of KU's education faculty, told The Express Tribune that the purpose of their clinic is to help parents of differently-abled children to assess their child's condition. She said that often when parents come to know about their children's disability, they are unaware of where they should take them. In such a situation, she said that their remedial centre can guide the parents as to which school is best for their children.

According to Dr Shahzadi, there are generally five disabilities in children: learning disabilities, hearing impairments, visual handicaps, physical handicaps and mental handicaps.

With the help of the Portage Programme, which is a home-based American tool translated into Urdu, she explained that they gauge the deficiencies in children and then refer parents to the most suitable school for their child. The adoptive behaviour scale is a check list of behaviour assessment for children, translated by former in-charge of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre's psychiatric ward, Mehar Hasan, she explained.

A lecturer of the department, Imtisal Hussain, said that the programme is for special children. He pointed out that it is easy to teach children without disabilities. "The teachers should know how to tackle special children's needs," he said.



The vice-president of Federation of Pakistan, Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Waseem Vohra, who presided over the ceremony, said that the remedial centre can play a vital role in the education of special children in society. He said that the department of education was arranging programmes without any budget or financial support. "It must be funded by the government as well as the university, so the differently-abled children come into our education system," he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2016.