Education and Employment

E-book will help visually impaired children understand the universe

An e-book for children with visual impairments is soon to be available at Apple’s iBook store as a free download on your iPad.

Are novels a waste of time in today’s data-driven world?
■ Reading into religion with Alexis York Lumbard’s Islamic children’s books

Titled Reach for the Stars: Touch, Look, Listen, Learn, the e-book is inspired by a new Hubble Space

Telescope image of the colourful 30 Doradus Nebula – a giant star-forming region.

Blind girl from Tamil Nadu cracks UPSC

The dream is to enter the IAS cadre and N L Beno Zephine, who is visually impaired, is holding her breath until the marks for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam results are released in 15 days.

It was a tough few years of work, but Beno, 24, enjoyed it and has secured an all-India rank of 343 in the UPSC exams. "Preparing for the civil services made it easy for me to clear other competitive exams," she said.

Promoting and practising sensitivity

In the Equal Opportunities Cell at Delhi University’s North Campus on Friday, many differently-abled students, ranging from the visually impaired to those with locomotor disabilities and dyslexia, were seated in an air-conditioned room and were calmly being helped with their application forms by special volunteers sensitive to their needs.

This was in drastic contrast to the scenes in centres such as Daulat Ram College, which on day one and two, forced these students to brave the heat and get in line with other categories.

Show leniency to visually impaired students, allow oral exams

Given the stress and anxiety associated with board exams, psychologists and psychiatrists believe there should be some leniency in the way the papers of visually impaired students are corrected. Such students are at a disadvantage because they have to deal with writers who appear on their behalf. Most of the times, the writers are younger than them and in case of papers like maths, it becomes even more difficult to interact with them as it involves calculations. Therefore, there is a growing demand to grant concession to visually impaired students and allow them to take oral exams.

First batch of visually impaired students to write CSEC

Anxious and a bit nervous but confident are just some of the words that can be used to describe students of the Guyana Society for the Blind, (GSB) who are preparing to write the upcoming Caribbean Secondary Education Council, (CSEC) examinations.

To be honest, I did not know what to expect, as I sat down to chat with the group of visually impaired students, the first batch to take on the task of publicly displaying their intellectual capabilities by entering to write the exams.

China offers college entrance exam in Braille

Chinese students will be able to sit for the college entrance exam in Braille, the ministry of education has announced.

Human Rights Watch described this week’s directive as an important breakthrough after years of campaigning by disability rights advocates in China, where educational and employment discrimnation are rife.

While a few blind students have studied at university, the vast majority have been effectively barred from higher education because there was no provision for them.

Blind to the Barriers

Ideas to make schools more inclusive

It doesn’t have to be difficult to make our places of study an easier place for the differently-abled

Social and political recognition of differently-abled people is the need of the hour. If they not accepted by their parents, how can we expect the society to do so?

In the view that most of our differently-abled persons are beggars, one question arises: who is responsible for their condition?

‘Keep seats for differently-abled children vacant’

HC pulls up government for its lackadaisical attitude in directing schools about the quota

Quashing of job advertisement; HC asks Centre, Delhi government to reply

The Delhi High Court today asked the Centre and the city government to respond to a PIL seeking quashing of an advertisement for jobs on the ground that seats have not been reserved for persons with disabilities including visually-impaired ones.

"We would expect that by the next date of hearing, the respondents would submit their views with regard to issues raised in the petition," a bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Jayant Nath said.