Bhubaneswar: For children with hearing disabilities, schooling can be an uphill battle, especially when classrooms are not designed for them. At home, many grow up without any exposure to sign language, leading to delays in linguistic and cognitive development.
Growing up in a remote village in Subarnapur district, hearing-impaired Sibaji Panda understood this reality all too well. Despite going on to earn a masters degree from the University of New England and a PhD in special education, Panda carried with him a deeply personal mission to build a school for hearing-impaired learners led by hearing-impaired educators.
A decade ago, Panda quit his job as a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK and returned to his village, Lakhanpur, with a dream of setting up a residential school for hearing-impaired children that would be truly inclusive, holistic and future-oriented. That dream took shape as 'Happy Hands'.
Today, Panda's institute is being lauded internationally. Unesco recognised Happy Hands as a unique and pioneering model of inclusive, bilingual and eco-centric education for hearing-impaired children in rural Odisha. The school was featured in Unesco's State of the Education Report for India 2025-'Bhasa Matters', published earlier this month.
"What makes our school unique is its bilingual approach and eco-education," Panda said.
Unlike most special schools where oral teaching dominates, Happy Hands ensures that Indian Sign Language (ISL) is used everywhere inside classrooms and in daily life on the campus. Panda established a sign-bilingual model, where ISL functions as the first language, providing a strong cognitive foundation for learning English as a second language.
"English is taught primarily as a written language, enabling children to grow up bilingual. We also started teaching Odia and Hindi as additional languages," explained Panda, who has been invited by President Droupadi Murmu to attend the 'At Home' reception on Republic Day.
All educators at Happy Hands are hearing-impaired teachers. Residential staff members who are not hearing-impaired are required to learn and use sign language to ensure that the environment remains genuinely inclusive.
Research and lived experience, he said, show that sign language plays a crucial role in developing independent thinking and strong cognitive foundations. "Most deaf children in India suffer cognitive setbacks due to language deprivation," Panda said. "When children grow up in families and communities where no one knows sign language, which is the case for the vast majority, they miss out on natural language acquisition during the most critical early years. This deprivation can have serious, long-lasting effects."
The school offers fully residential education from LKG to Class VIII. It admits only 10 to 12 children every year, and only in early grades such as LKG and UKG. Currently, around 70 children are enrolled, with the oldest students studying in Class VIII. All education, boarding and care are provided free of cost.
Education at the school, which runs entirely on voluntary funding, extends far beyond textbooks. Students participate daily in eco-campus activities such as gardening and engage in small design projects that are integrated into mathematics, science and art lessons. "We are starting eco-vocational training for older students this year," said Panda, who is a former vice-president of Indian Sign Language Interpreter Association.
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