Former AIISH director M. Jayaram on Saturday said it was difficult to implement NEP with multiple exits in the undergraduate programme of the disability sector as there is no alternative to the 4-year multidisciplinary Bachelor’s programme.
As per NEP, students will get a certificate at the end of one year of study, a diploma after two years, a Bachelor’s degree after three years, and a Bachelor’s degree ‘with research’ (or Honors) after four years of study. “This would be disastrous if implemented. The first and the second year of the undergraduate programme in speech and hearing is essentially a foundation programme. The field of speech and hearing being a highly interdisciplinary science, the students are being exposed, in the first and second year, to knowledge in a number of fields that are important to understand the mechanisms and processes of speech[1]language and hearing,” he explained.
The former dean of NIMHANS, who was speaking at the 53 rd ISHACON at AIISH here, said the core clinical competencies and skills are acquired and refined in the last two years. The clinical internship (4th year) is critical for the student to be a skilful clinician.
“This being the case, I wonder what a student will do in society with just 1 or 2 years or even 3 years of training. Conceptually too, a student with one year or 2 years of training addressing the needs of the clinical population is unsuitable. I am sure the situation will be similar in other disability areas such as physiotherapy or clinical/rehabilitation psychology,” he argued.
