Beyond Teaching: Teacher Support Shaping and Abetting Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities

Empowerment of persons with disabilities (PWDs) has now assumed paramount importance while crafting disability-related policies, education framework and inclusion. Strong commitment has been displayed towards inclusion and accessibility by the state and private institutions. However, studies providing empirical evidences about the role played by teachers in shaping the livelihood of disabled by empowering them and transforming them as independent, confident and competent to participate in fruitful jobs is very much scanty. This study examines how teacher support received by disabled has cast a bearing on them gaining empowerment. Primary data was collected from 134 disabled in Chennai selected using Snowball sampling and analysed using SPSS, applying the analytical tools of Frequency, Mean, Cluster Analysis, Chi-square Analysis, Correspondence Analysis and Regression. Findings of the survey indicate that the disabled surveyed have gained good level of empowerment in their professional life while they have been supported by teachers to an average extent on majority of issues. Support from teachers have cast a significant positive influence on their empowerment with those fortunate to get good support of teachers gaining high level of empowerment. This implies that the quality of teachers’ support for disabled usually well translates into better empowerment of them in their profession. Keywords: disability; Empowerment; Employment; Independent working; Persons with disabilities; Teachers support.