Salary of special educators under Welfare of the Differently-Abled Department raised to ₹25,000

Special educators under the Welfare of the Differently-Abled Department will now be paid ₹25,000, according to a Government Order (G.O.).

The G.O. issued by the department said honorarium being paid to 1,015 specialist teachers and physical therapists working in special schools run by non-governmental organisations and 369 specialist teachers and physical therapists working in primary training centres and day-care centres would be increased from ₹18,000 to ₹25,000.

Pointing out that the special educators working at the primary education-level in integrated school education were being paid ₹25,000, the G.O. said, “Many private charitable organisations in Tamil Nadu are running more than 400 special schools for the intellectually disabled with the approval of the government, and are facing various economic crises with difficulty. The qualified special teachers in these special schools have been working for a long time on low salaries, and their work is very demanding and multi-skilled.”

Welcoming the move, general secretary of the Confederation of Association of Persons with Mental Disabilities M. Ravichandran said, “Among all the teaching assignments across the globe, the toughest is the job of the special educators, and the confederation appreciates the government for its gesture to special education professionals.”