It was planned to visit about 40 deaf schools in South India from there about 20 deaf schools in Coimbatore itself where Murali Kuppusamy resides. When starting with our program in Coimbatore we quickly had to realize and to accept that it was impossible to go to all deaf schools. So, we often could pay attention only to one or two deaf schools each day. This experience remained for the rest of our travel to other deaf schools in South India. Reasons for not being able to attend all the schools as planned are diverse, like:

• Deaf schools are located far apart from each other even within the city itself.
• Often one hour or even more must be spent to reach one school from another school.
• Directions to the deaf schools were not always easy.
• More time was needed for the speech to the deaf children by Murali Kuppusamy.
• Time for questions and answers from the deaf children needed also to be given.
• Exchange meetings with teachers with me to talk about how to teach deaf children.
• Some deaf schools were very ambitious and presented their own program for us (children were performing a dance, theatre and similar activities).
• Exchange meetings with the principals in office of each school took place after the entire program at the school was finished.
• Some schools provided a snack or a lunch for us.

Nevertheless, paying attention to these "limited" number of deaf schools we entered (see school list at Murali Kuppusamy´s report) were really paid worthwhile. So more concentration and time could be provided to these deaf schools.

In India to my understanding in general two different types of schools exist: private and government schools. This applies also for the deaf schools. We visited both kind of schools. It must be said that a big difference between both - private and government - schools exists.

We decided to pay more attention to the private schools than to the government schools. Reasons will be explained at another place. Before giving the impressions of visiting both kinds of schools, it must be emphasized that all deaf schools - no matter if private or government - gave us a hearty welcome. All principals, teachers and especially the deaf children were delighted about our workshops we provided to them. For the children it was a very special highlight to be able to come all together - for example - in a hall joining the speech of Murali Kuppusamy (see also his detailed report about his workshop for the deaf children). Since he is an Indian deaf man himself, he was able to give to the deaf children a wonderful role model to look up. He was sharing his experiences with them about his life and being a young child at a deaf school. He tried to make clear to the deaf children how important education is for them to be able to lead a good life after school leaving and that deaf children can achieve the same like hearing children. During his speech he also showed examples of learning techniques how to study better for classes and how important it is to work hard for classes too to be able to keep up the same level like hearing schools. Another point was that deaf people should not "copy" the choices of occupations among themselves and gain all the same occupations later on after school leaving. Many deaf children choose the occupations like working as a tailor or in a bank and similar jobs.

It was emphasized how important it is that each child must learn to look to himself and think about its own personality, skills and knowledge. Knowing itself better what it can do and what kind of "tools" it has to be able to master leading his own personal life later on, each deaf school child will be able to take over a successful and a responsible life. At the conclusion of his educational speech Shri. Murali Kuppusamy pointed out that deaf children very well can acquisit higher education at universities and get diplomas up to BED and even PhD, too. And yet it is each deaf child´s responsibility to make something out of its life.

In connection to his speech, I then myself was signing to the deaf children after a short introduction about my life. I gave supportive remarks about the educational speech of Shri. Murali Kuppusamy how important education is - especially for deaf children. I tried to make them understand that deaf and hearing people must be treated equally and that deaf children must have a much more positive and strong self-esteem to be able to challenge themselves in the hearing world after. I also appealed to them to go for higher education to become for example deaf teachers, deaf doctors, deaf lawyers, deaf actors etc. The Indian Deaf Communtiy does not provide such deaf professional people yet like several other countries in the world already do. I also pointed out clearly that deaf people very well can and must occupy such high positions in the working world, too. If this will not happen, the Indian Deaf Community for sure will be lost and will remain low while all other Deaf Communities in the world will grow more and more with professional educated deaf adults. At the end of our programfor the children, there was the possibility for the deaf children to raise questions to Murali Kuppusamy. After hesitating some time the children bombed him with so many questions. With lots of patience all the questions were tried to be responded to the satisfaction of the deaf children.

To summarize I believe it was very enjoyable for the children to attend our educational program. They all paid great attention to what Murali Kuppusamy was signing. It is to be assumed that all the deaf children now were given food for thoughts to realize that education is the key for the success of life. Many children came towards Murali Kuppusamy and notified to him of thier intention to make changes and to focus more on education. It must be highly emphasized at this place that Murali Kuppusamy played a very important role to the deaf children as being a deaf Indian man himself with whom the deaf children at all deaf schools we visited could identify very strongly - no matter if the deaf school was rather oral or rather sign language supportive.

After finishing the program for the deaf children, a meeting with the teachers was organized. Here, in this frame I mainly was talking as a deaf teacher to the teachers and gave them a CD-presentation about my work in my native country. It was about the bilingual education in my class and the way how it was taught by the hearing and the deaf teacher in one classroom. Main goal of the Bilingual Education is to teach the deaf children two languages - spoken and sign languages - so that they learn early to separate both languages. With the presence both of a hearing and a deaf teacher, another goal is to provide the children role models of both worlds - hearing and deaf world. Especially with having a deaf teacher the children should be able to build up a strong identity and self-esteem as being deaf themselves so that they later can master their lives both in the deaf and in the hearing world. At the end of the presentation there were several questions from the teachers like how to teach both languages opposite as an example. So, I showed this way in a classroom in front of deaf children: A hearing teacher was standing right in front of the black board while I was standing on the left side. So, the teachers positions are seen clearly. Each teacher has a symbol hanging on the black board which signalized the teachers languages: the deaf teacher has the symbol of "hands" -> meaning: Sign Language/ the hearing teacher has the symbol of "mouth and hands"-> meaning Signed English Language.

After writing a sentence as an example: " I eat an apple" on the black board on the hearing teachers side, I asked the teacher to sign and to speak that sentence at the same time to the deaf children. Then, I asked the deaf children how to sign this in Sign Language and gave the answer, too. I tried to visualize that both languages have their own grammar and yet are equal like all other languages. An example is that the verb in both languages - the spoken and the sign languages - are placed differently within one sentence: example: spoken/written language: "I eat an apple". Sign Language: "I apple eat". At the same time I made clear that Sign Language can not be written down but can be visualized by sign pictures hanging on the black board. Through that way, deaf children can see both language visualized, compare them and raise awareness about them. This way helps them to acquisit good writing skills with having the awareness of grammar written rules. It can be said like "Code Switching" between both languages.

The hearing teachers then gave me more sentences to show how to teach these opposite to the deaf children. When mentioning the importance of using Sign Language for the development of reading skills, a hearing teacher at an oral school stated this would not be true and that the deaf child would be confused when using both languages. Her opinion was that spoken language would help the deaf child to gain reading skills since both grammars are the same.

She then asked a deaf child to volunteer to read an extract of a text in the working book. That child for sure seemed to be skilled in spoken language. By inviting that child to explain the meaning of what it had read, it was not able to do. This situation gave a food of thought to that teacher and others why the child had failed. I then explained the meaning of this extract through sign language, pantomime and gestures to make it understandable to that child and the others. Their faces were smiling. The teachers then somehow started to realize that when using Sign Language it would help the deaf child to understand texts.

These situation as described came typically from the oral schools whose teachers in generally fear using the Sign Language because of simply having poor knowledge of Sign Language etc. Those teachers wanted to find something to proof the impossibility of teaching both languages but failed. Teachers at the schools which support Sign Language as classroom instruction language were very interested and open minded in the way how hearing and deaf teacher can work together as a team and teach both languages.

To summarize both workshops - for the deaf children and teachers - as shown turned out to be very fruitful and beneficial for both groups. The deaf children enjoyed very much their educational program by Shri Murali Kuppusamy and as well by me. The teachers were fed with a food of thought children and their eyes were opened about another way of education deaf children. The discussions with them were all very instructional and enjoyable.

Here, I would like to take the opportunity to inform about another incident that has happened during our presence in a deaf private school. After Shri. Murali Kuppusamy and I had finished with our educational program to the deaf children, we opened as usual the possibility to raise questions by the children. During the discussion with these deaf children, some of them were outspoken and complained for not being allowed to use sign language in classroom. Those students reported us that if they are caught by using sign language by the teachers, that 5 Rupees have to be paid every time to the teacher.

This fact is very shocking as it was the first time during our tour to "hear" something like that. We informed the children that this is very very wrong to be punished in such a way by using the sign language. It is like an abuse for not using the sign language by paying money to the teachers. We talked to the teachers and also to the principal about this matter that this has to stop immediately. When asking what the teachers would do with the money, no one responded of course.

In this place, it must be outspoken to the government of India - especially the Rehabilitation of Council in New Delhi which to my understanding is responsible for Deaf Education on national level -that this issue is clearly a violation of the UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. I suggest the government in India to follow up with this issue straight with the Leonard School for the Hearing Impaired in Madurai in order to ensure that this deaf school will not continue abusing the UN Standard Rules any more.

To compare the deaf schools run by the government we had the impression that private schools in general were really trying to take their task more serious to educate deaf children and get them prepared for the life after leaving school. No doubts, both kind of schools are different. The government schools are supported by the government while the private schools are mostly founded by different organizations like Rotary International Club. Also, children who visit private schools pay school fees while children at the government schools do not pay any fees. Those deaf children come rather from the poor families as explained by Murali Kuppusamy and by the principals themselves, too.

And yet it is a very important fact, that all children no matter from which family background they come from - rich or poor - have the right of getting a proper school education. This especially concerns the deaf children, too! To get a school education is each childs human right! Both schools - private and government - seem not to fulfill fully the deaf children´s rights of gaining good school education equally to hearing children. And yet, it must be said here again that the private schools give efforts to teach deaf children. Those are also much better equipped with teaching materials etc. On the basis of my personal observations the situation of both school forms could be explained