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issue 2 january-february 2005
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Headlines : India News
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Extending the benefits of education to disabled children

Indian Express; November 2004

In a major step forward, 20 million disabled children across the country can now avail of several facilities like free text-books, free uniforms, special transport, scholarships, disabled-friendly school buildings, etc. It was in 1995 that Persons With Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full participation) Act was enacted. It has taken the Government nine years to come up with a notification ensuring special facilities for such children.

In a notification, the Government has also made it obligatory for all schools to set up special forums for redressal of grievances for parents with disabled children.

For visually-disabled children, Braille books, talking books, sensory training kits, canes for mobility, text-to-speech software and computer hardware with a Braille keyboard is to be made available. For the hearing disabled, clinical audio meters, portable audio meters, speech trainers and speech recognition software is to be given.

Scholarships should be made available and the list of students should be discussed at parent-teacher association (P.T.A.) meetings. Grants could be made available under the Integrated Education for the Disabled Children scheme.

P.T.A.s should be set up in schools and colleges to redress grievances of the parents of the disabled. Alternative modes of examining such students could be devised. The existing system could be modified, for instance, to accommodate the needs of blind students by eliminating purely mathematical questions.

Other India News stories in this issue:
Reliance launches new application for visually impaired users
Intelligent cane to guide blind users
Magiktuch concert for visually impaired people a grand success
New computer centre opened in Bangalore
Shwaas: A must watch film
Blind students open people’s eyes to horrors of dowry

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