Heterogeneous network facility for distance education for parents and rehabilitation professionals in the field of intellectual disability

Shortage of adequately trained faculty members for special education is a major bottleneck in India, in providing the optimum level of training to the intellectually challenged children[1]. We have developed and implemented a facility, covering 100 schools for the intellectually challenged children, spread across the four southern states of India, to provide continuing education for their teaching faculty. These schools can participate in live interactive virtual classrooms handled by the experts in the field of disability. A heterogeneous network using terrestrial VPN, Satellite, internet and WIMAX connectivity has been set up connecting the schools and four teaching stations, one each in the four states. The training sessions are recorded and made available as streaming video through a web portal called Svadhyaya. A mobile recording studio facility connected through WIMAX enables online and offline transmission of programs from remote locations. The facility has been found to be highly successful in providing continued development practice by enriching the knowledge, skills and resources of the professionals in the field of intellectual disability.