There is hope for the visually-challenged students in the field of electronic media. Department of Education, University of Pune (UoP) in association with the department of Journalism, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU), is offering a one-year diploma course in radio and journalism.

The course will begin in early August and has already enrolled visually-impaired students from Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur and Nashik. Vidyawani, the community radio station located at the UoP, is supporting this initiative by providing teaching assistance. "We have got the permission from the vice-chancellor of YCMOU, Rajan Welukar, to borrow some parts of the journalism modules from its one-year diploma course in journalism. Along with this, the staff from Vidyawani and other experts in the field of radio will provide practical and hands-on training in radio production to these visually-impaired students," said Satish Navale, research scholar at the Department of Education, UoP, who has spearheaded the Braillewani Web Radio to broadcast programmes for and by the visually impaired, in association with Vidyawani.

Students will undergo lectures and practical sessions in radio anchoring, script writing, recording, interview techniques and presentation of radio programmes. Interestingly, the radio programmes they produce as a part of their syllabus, will be broadcast on the Braille WEB Radio, Vidyawani.

"The students will also be assessed and marked for their efforts in the radio programmes they produce. It is also important that the students learn how to handle the various equipment involved in radio production. Also, our staff will go to other centres like Mumbai, Nagpur and Nashik, to give additional on-field training to our students," informed Anand Deshmukh, director of Vidaywani, who will teach anchoring, presentation and scripting to the students.

"This course has been started on an experimental basis. The course also contains contact sessions, wherein our staff will go to the centres like Mumbai, Nagpur and Nashik to train the students practically. This will also involve audio conferencing with our students from the Vidyawani studio," says Navale.

Preceding the course, the Department of Education will host a special seminar on Braille WEB Radio Vidyawani on August 2. To be held on the occasion of Rakhi Pournima, the programme will have experts, along with visually-impaired students, discussing the challenges faced by special students and the roles of special educators.

According to Navale, the new course is also a way of encouraging students to join radio production at Braille Web Radio. "That's why, along with the curriculum from YCMOU, we have designed out own modules on practical training on radio production," says Navale.