Arindam Ganguly, OP
BHUBANESWAR:Visually-impaired students in Orissa will soon get new assistance in the form of a Scribes Club. While such clubs will be formed in all the universities and colleges in the state in ways as to help such students in reading as well as writing during examinations, there are questions as to why schools and colleges are hesitating to make use of modern tools to help these students perform better.
Additional secretary to the state government, Prasanta Kumar Das, recently sent a letter to vice chancellors of universities, asking them to form the scribes club in universities as also in all degree colleges. The club would be composed of student volunteers from the NSS, NCC, YRC, as also the Rovers and Rangers, who would provide assistance to visually impaired students. Appreciating this initiative, Sanyasi Behera, the first visually impaired person to qualify in an Orissa Administrative Services examination said, “This is a good step but I would suggest that the government provide some incentives to these scribes in the form of money or allowances.
It should not be a purely voluntary effort. Alternatively, they may be given grace marks or certificates as a token of appreciation for the work they do. This would motivate them to function in a better manner.” “Training of these volunteers is also important to make them effective as scribes. They should also be able to do justice to the visually impaired students’ work. I think scribes can be included in the preparation of accessible reading materials,” he said. Sushant Patel, a visually-impaired diploma student, said the visually impaired students faced a lot of problems due to lack of good writers. This disturbed their academic preparations and affected their mindset. These volunteers must understand the students and interact with them beforehand so that they don’t face any problem during the examination.”
Lalatendu Mohanta, another visually-impaired student, said in today’s age, when technology is advancing and empowering people, the blind and the visually-impaired can be provided assistance in better ways. “There are technological solutions that can be applied for assessing the
performance of blind students.”
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has issued clear guidelines that allowed use of computers, Braille, audio recorders, and other assistive technology that would help these students. Blind students can use computers with the aid of screenreading software. This helps them listen to everything that’s displayed on-screen. It will enable them write their examinations independently. Despite this, schools and universities continue using the services of the scribes. This, he said, could be for various reasons.
Schools and universities may not be adequately equipped with computers, screen
reading software and other infrastructure required for use by blind examinees. This could also be because of the general closedmindset towards change and new technology.
Abhaya Mohanta of we4u that provides record books for thousands of students in the state said visually-impaired students faced a lot of challenges in all the fields of their life including in education. “Despite all the technology that is available, students in the state face difficulties during the examinations. We don’t have enough of Braille textbooks, and this adds to the problems of the students. The writer for the visually impaired students must be trained enough to manage and understand the mind of the visually-impaired students.”
Mohammad Jafar Iqbal, a blind cricketer from Orissa, said, “This overall is a good step, but a few technical issues need to be addressed. Normally, scribes studying the same subjects are not allowed to write exams. But, for certain subjects like Sanskrit and music, the scribes are required to have basic knowledge in the subject, so as for them to be able to write anything. There should be certain flexibility, and
any good student who can write for the visually impaired students should be allowed to write as a scribe. There should not be any age-limit.” Om Prakash Trinetra, a teacher and recordist of subjects-based cassettes for students, said such steps are welcome and everybody must understand that visually-impaired students also have a lot of dreams and talents. Despite their loss of vision, they tried to get their proper status in the society, and the government along with everybody must help them in that.
Mohammad Nawaz Hassan, principal of the BJB Autonomous College, said, “Yes, we have received the letter and have already started the procedures to form the club. The scribes club will start in our college soon. We are going to have a discussion soon and we shall finalise everything.” “This is a noble step which would help scores of visually impaired students pursue their education. We would try to make sure that all the volunteers who enroll themselves for this noble initiative are good in education and can write properly so that they can do justice to the work they do for the visually impaired students,” he added.
