The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) board has a ’vision’ for its visually impaired students. CBSE wants to encourage visually impaired students to pursue careers in the Science stream.

From this academic year, such students from class XI and XII, will get special question papers without any visual inputs like graphs or diagrams for subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.Instead of practicals, they will have to appear for a multiple choice questions test, which will be based on practical content.

The visually-challenged teachers in the state would soon grow out of the need for a helping hand to take them around in schools.
The 248 visually-impaired teachers are in the process of developing tactile maps, which provide them the layout of their school environment, enabling easy mobility.

The Gauhati University, in collaboration with NTPC Limited, started an information communication training centre (ITC) at the department of disability study on Wednesday. The aim behind this training centre is to encourage students with disability to pursue higher education in the field of science and technology.

Power minister Pradyut Bordoloi, who inaugurated the centre, said, “It is really a memorable day as such a training centre would definitely help differently abled students to pursue higher education in science and technology.”

Disability activists have welcomed the move by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to do away with hands-on practical components in basic sciences for visually-impaired students (class 11 and 12) and replaced it with a multiple-choice question paper instead.

Speakers at a five-day workshop on ‘Orientation to Braille' organised here on Monday laid emphasis on the need to spread awareness on Braille, and cover all visually impaired persons under the Braille literacy programmes, including ones in regular educational institutions.