Seventy-four visually impaired students from various districts of the State underwent a month-long computer training programme at the Centre of Differently Abled Persons, Bharathidasan University.
Conducted in association with National Federation for the Blind (NFB), South Zone, the landmark project trained visually impaired students in using regular computer equipment and applications, with the help of NVDA open source screen-reading software. Centres were established in Tiruchi, Madurai, Coimbatore, and Chennai especially for this project, which provided study material and concluded with a practical grade-based skills evaluation. The participating institutions were Shivani College of Education in Tiruchi, Karna Vidya Technology Centre (Chennai), NFB (Coimbatore), and Royal Vision (Madurai).
Speaking at the valediction of the programme on Thursday, N. Muralidharan, Regional Joint Director (Employment), Tiruchi, said the programme would be a boon to making the job market in India more inclusive. “I was very happy to note that normal keyboards were used to teach the visually impaired students, as computer skills have replaced typing as an essential requirement for clerical government jobs,” he said.
He said that of the 7,500 differently-able candidates registered with the Employment Office in Tiruchi, 1,075 people were visually impaired people with a range of educational qualifications.
Audio answer banks for government exam question papers for the past 10 years on CDs are now available at the Employment Office for the benefit of the visually impaired.
In his presidential address, C. Thiruchelvam, Registrar, Bharathidasan University, said that perseverance and the determination to succeed were the most important qualities required of today’s job applicants. “A simple degree is of no use in the globalised job market,” he said. “We need to have the skills that suit the requirement of employers. “Disability is not as a big a hurdle as before. Everyone has merit and uniqueness, and everyone deserves to succeed,” he added.
M. Prabhavathi, Head, Centre for Differently Abled Persons, and E. Edward Joseph, Co-ordinator, National Federation for the Blind, South Zone, spoke.
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