Students with visual impairment have a right to learn

 Students with visual impairment have a right to learn

---

Rajlakshmi.Ghosh@timesgroup.com

31.01.2022

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked all its affiliated colleges and universities to integrate suitable educational resources and infrastructure for visually impaired students. “In pandemic times, the challenges are more acute, as the online learning systems across HEIs do not adequately support students with visual disabilities in getting information, access to virtual classroom facilities and participation in assessment. As inclusive education has been highlighted in NEP 2020, the UGC directive could not have come at a better time,” says Himangshu Das, director, National Institute for the Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD) & Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya National Institute for Persons with Physical Disabilities (PDU-NIPPD).

Challenges one too many

“We have around 200 students pursuing graduation, out of which around 20 visually challenged students are in need of laptops for online education. Plans are on for the distribution of suitable electronic devices, training, oral examination for visually impaired (VI) students,” says A Chidambaram,co-ordinator for Higher Education for Personswith Special Needs (HEPSN), an enabling unit of Pondicherry University (PU) which is headed and executed by visually and physically challenged faculty members.

“Access to information has ₹always been a major problem for the visually challenged in India,” says Muttayya Koganuramath, director, Basava International Information Centre, Basava Samithi, Bengaluru, whose published paper on ‘Learning Resource Centre forthe Visually Challenged Students’, underlines the need for such centres in every HEI for equitable access in education, research, training and employment