Neurodivergent students' right to education

"Get him admitted to a government school" is the remark parents of neurodivergent children hear from teachers and management of private schools, particularly elite ones. The remark raises two questions: Why do private schools label a neurodivergent student as a liability, not an asset? And why are government schools expected to welcome them?

The remark is corrosively crass. It insinuates that parents are wasting their resources on a child who can't compete with 'talented students'. At a government school, as per their elitist approach to education, a neurodivergent child would mingle well with students having an average intelligence quotient.

Private institutions base their bias against neurodivergent students on the 'individual attention fallacy' — that such a student consumes more than their fair share of attention. The rat race of securing higher grades to advertise the institution's brand name makes such a child a liability — a drain on their time, space and resources. Polemics like 'they have to be compassionate to other students' and 'it's in the best interest of the neurodivergent students' are put to justify their exclusion.

The individual attention fallacy denotes that teachers and school management are at a loss for creative solutions to fulfil the learning needs of neurodivergent children. Their fanatic adherence to one-size-fits-all pedagogy incapacitates them in understanding the demands of neurodiversity. Hence, no room for differentiated instruction. As per Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, there are nine types of intelligence. Gardner asserts, "Subsequently, an educator should individualise (meet the needs and capabilities of each learner) and pluralise (present/engage learners in a variety of ways)." Piaget also believes that children of different ages make different mistakes because of the "quality rather than quantity" of their intelligence.

The tragedy is that such a child is not marginalised till the board exams held for grades nine and ten. Neurodivergent students are just pushed through from grade one to eight, placating parents with an all-good progress report. The aim is to mint a hefty amount of money under the rubrics of fees, campus paraphernalia and extra charges for auxiliary study materials.

After keeping a student at the campus for almost ten years (playgroup to grade eight), if a school abandons a student on his failure to catch up with the learning momentum of the class, it is the utter failure of the school's system. It belies their existential claim of nurturing human talent. The failure owes to a neuromyth — we conflate intelligence with a learning style. Every child is intelligent or rather possesses more than one type of intelligence. However, learning styles vary among students: visual, auditory, reading/writing or kinaesthetic. Each child learns in his own style. Instruction through a student's preferred learning style is the key to making an education system all-inclusive.

The elite private schools don't deal with the disciplines of arts and humanities, which, in our part of the world, are deemed suitable for average to below-average students. Rather, they offer science subjects, considered a prerogative of brilliant minds. They pander to social norms that only doctors and engineers are the successful and intelligent people. The more doctors and engineers they churn out, the more successful institutions they are. Neurodivergence explains that there are children whose brains function contrary to what is considered the societal 'norm'. The cognitive differences are natural variations of human experience rather than deficits or disorders. The need is to transform results-churning smithies into child-based classrooms.

Article 25-A of Pakistan's Constitution doesn't obligate private schools to provide free education, but it must stipulate support for neurodivergent students. As per the UN's SDG 4, it is to 'ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.' This 'all' must include neurodivergent students to honour our global commitment.

Dedication: The article is dedicated to Fatir, my student, who was excused by an elite private school from continuing his studies there.