Delhi University's decision to allow vocational subjects to be counted in the best-of-four percentages will benefit many disabled applicants. Officials at DU's Equal Opportunity Cell, which facilitates admissions for reserved categories say these subjects were included earlier as well, but only after much negotiation with college authorities. Now that vocational subjects have the official DU nod for all categories, the reserved PwD group (persons with disability) should face fewer hassles.

Several children in special and mainstream schools take vocational subjects in Class XI.
Usha Ram, principal, Laxman Public School, says schools and offer a variety of vocational subjects-retail, fashion designing, physical education, home science-for kids with learning disabilities. Laxman Public School, through its learning centre, has taught kids for over two decades. "We offer vocational subjects so that they can clear the CBSE exams. We make it clear to parents that the child may not get admission in DU but we prepare them for life," says Ram.

But from 2014, these kids will be eligible and officially so. "The visually impaired typically have music and the hearing-impaired study information or food technology," says Bipin Tiwary, officer on special duty, EOC, "Now their admission process will become easier. Earlier colleges would call up to say they won't allow inclusion of these subjects in the best-of-four and we'd have to convince them. This time, the process will become more transparent."

Score Foundation's George Abraham too finds this a "good move." "It will help applicants from other states and smaller cities," says Abraham adding, "These students can also pick up stuff in schools, confident that they won't be out of the system and will be able to move back into the mainstream. It will result in more options in the long run." This year, 10 marks will be taken off the score in each vocational subject while calculating the best-of-four but even that's no hurdle-DU has roughly 1,500 seats for PwD, less than half get filled every year.

EOC has undertaken several measures to ensure greater awareness about DU's reservation and facilities for the disabled. Last year, its members visited special schools to counsel students and plan to repeat that process this year. They also intend to hold counseling sessions and station volunteers at SGTB Khalsa College and Daulat Ram College-the two registration centres in North Campus.

Colleges will also be issued instructions by EOC on facilitating admissions for the group. The EOC will also issue guidelines to colleges on facilitating admissions for the group-the process was decentralized last year and colleges started issuing cutoffs as they do for other categories.

The instructions include provision of helpdesks, accessible spaces, making NSS (Nation Service Scheme) and NCC (National Cadet Corps) students available for assistance, availability of wheelchairs and making at least two teachers from the enabling unit of the college as "nodal persons for handling grievances of such students."

But as Madhumita Puri of the Society for Child Development points out, "Only the top 1% of disabled kids will apply to DU." "Even in schools, the representation of the disabled is abysmally low. You won't find any of the severe disabilities. In smaller cities, the early foundation is not good and these kids are not able to competitively handle these mainstream subjects," says Puri, "Most of them won't even reach college."

SOURCE: Times of India