Education Institutions for blind ailing

BHUBANESWAR: There are many vacancies in the Government High School of the Blind, Burla, and Bhima Bhoi School for the Blind here which has affected education of the visually-challenged students. Despite repeated requests to the authorities concerned for filling up of vacant  teaching and non-teaching posts, no action has been taken yet. Besides, not many government primary schools are equipped with special educators, a primary requirement as far as enrolment of the handicapped children is concerned. While normal girl students are provided with bicycles, there is no such  facility for their handicapped counterparts. Besides, a majority of college libraries lack reading facilities in Braille and large printed books for the benefit of blind students.   These and several such allegations were made at a State-level visually-challenged students’ conference, attended by Chairperson of State Disability Commission Kasturi Mohapatra, here on Tuesday.   Participating in the conference, visually-challenged students of RD Women’s College alleged that they were facing problems in getting exemption of admission fees and allocation of hostel seats. They said no adequate number of hostel rooms had been allotted to  blind girls admitted to Plus-III courses. Stating that though the  Government has initiated several measures for the benefit of the handicapped students, not all of them are being implemented at the grass-roots. They further said though a circular was passed in 2009 by the Higher Education Department for exemption of admission, readmission and miscellaneous fees for handicapped students, it has not been implemented at many colleges. Later in the day, the visually-challenged students submitted a memorandum to the Higher Education Minister Badrinarayan Patra.  They demanded a computerised Braille press in the State, special disability department at some State universities, a special BEd training centre for the visually impaired students and regular monitoring of Inclusive Education of the Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS) project.