Thiruvananthapuram: As the Union ministry of human resources development is scheduled to replace the present system of scribes for the visually- impaired candidates for public examinations, the state will have to make structural adjustments for the new system. The scribe system will be replaced with a system in which students can either use Braille or computer for writing the examinations in a phased manner from the next academic year.
Ram Kamal, mentor of Chakshumathi, an assistive technology centre for the visually impaired and print-disabled, told Deccan Chronicle that from 2020, the government would limit the use of scribes to prescribed numbers. Others would have to use Braille or computer.
Visually impaired students needed to be taught in English medium as it is more friendly to the visually impaired. The issue with Malayalam is that there is no uniformity in the fonts. Unicode fonts were friendly to visually impaired. However, most of the new fonts in Malayalam are not in Unicode and hence it is difficult for the visually impaired students to learn in Malayalam, said Mr Kamal.
Visually impaired students should be taught to use computer from standard I, that too in normal schools with other children, he said.
Chakshumathi with the help of the staff of Infosys on Wednesday donated a laptop to Vismaya, a visually impaired UKG student who will join the first standard next academic year, he said.
The technology helps children with visual impairment and print disability to overcome their disadvantages and scale great heights to achieve their dreams. Vismaya, granddaughter of a roadside tea shop man across Infosys campus at Kulathoor, dreams to get a job as a computer programmer in Infosys.
Infosys staff are taking it as a mission to ensure the study of the girl and mould her to be a programmer.
Chakshumathi has already produced one MCA graduate, one BTech CS graduate and currently two students are pursuing their BCA studies from the blind community. Those who completed the courses are working in reputed software firms as programmers.
