Article of the Week

Tapping Hidden Resources

It is but a natural progression of sorts. Severely hampered by a rate of attrition as high as 30 per cent, desperate call centers had to make a call to the most dependable and loyal of all citizens - the physically challenged. In fact, the employers are even taking that extra pain to provide these special recruits with, well, specialized training along with equal pay packets.

NASEOH's efforts rewarded: Things could not have been better for Sudha Balachandra, who is the Director of the National Society for Equal Opportunity for the handicapped (NASEOH). After offering a good working environment, door-to-door drop service and flexed working hours, it's but natural that corporates would want loyal and hardworking employees with more mental ability to tackle the job at hand.

She said that NASEOH had taken the initiative of training the physically handicapped with soft skills a couple of years ago. "We started the training in two batches of 20 students each. After been trained in computer and other modern technology, a leading company provided them jobs in back office operations. This gave confidence to the other students as well," she said.

Jobs for the taking: Balachandra stated that a leading travel company employed 11 students for their call centre operations. "They invested in the training and provided for all the necessary components. We have also successfully provided employment to more than 65 students in companies like HSBC, UTI, Kotak Securities and Datamatics," she added.

Disability not a deterrent: Vijay Mukhi, who runs the e-security initiative of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) the country's apex information technology body said that the ITeS- BPO sector in India is expected to touch $20 billion by 2008 and already employs around one million people presently.

"With employee turnover being as high as 25 to 30 per cent, the company needs more stable workforce these days. Also, the nature of job does not make disability a deterrent today." He said.

Manual D'Souza, Vie President (Human Resource) at Internet Global Network, confessed that hiring physically challenged candidates is purely a social conscientious initiative.

A S Sureshchandra, Director of Access Dataline Private Limited, echoes the same views. "The candidate's disability is not really a deterrent today. We would not have any problem whatsoever employing them if they ate good in their work," he said.

Source: BPOs make a call to disabled candidates. Mumbai-Mirror, Delhi, 2 May 2006.

Top

Towards a New Era in Education

Some call it the first step towards revolutionizing education for the visually impaired. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has agreed to allow visually-challenged students to write their examination papers, using a computer.

The move is a result of an appeal made by Anjali Arora, a Delhi-based visually-impaired student, who wrote to the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, requesting permission to be allowed to use her laptop to write a university examination. She probably never thought that her petition would have a direct impact on the way candidates with visual impairments across the country would write university examinations in the future.

Most major institutes for the visually impaired, like the National Association of Blind (NAB), have already introduced computer education for their students, using special Braille keyboards. In fact, the UGC approved Centre of Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) has developed a computerized Braille transcription system, which enable such students to read, write and print.

This system is already in place at 40 schools for the visually impaired across India. The system ensures that students are not deprived of good education because of their physical; disability. The advantage pf the system is that it supports several India languages - Hindi Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, in addition to Nepali and English.

Explaining how the system functions, K.G. Sulochana, Joint Director, CDAC, said that the entire range of computer peripherals, including the keyboard and printer, has been redesigned for the benefit of the visually impaired. Act Braille is a PC based, touch-reading device that could be used to read line-by-line with a set of control switches like Start and Stop. Braille Writer is an application developed by WML with a dedicated Braille keyboard.

Similarly, Text to Braille is another product for the visually challenged, which converts text files into Braille script. The printed is a PC- based embosser than can convert text to Braille or Braille to text. "Efforts are on to print graphics on the printer so that a visually-impaired person is able to read the description of a picture to know what it is," she adds.

According to UGC reports, just five per cent of the millions of visually impaired in India receive an education. And for these brave few it's an uphill struggle. "Books in Braille are not easy to come by," says Anisha Trivedi, an instructor for visually impaired children at the Homi Batliwala School for Visually Impaired in Mumbai. "We don't have too many translators who can translate an entire textbook from English or any other language, to Braille. We can't depend on foreign books, because ultimately, in the higher levels, the curriculum is the same for all students".

Examinations are just one part of what is a daily struggle for the visually impaired. "There is no accessibility of reading and study material in India. In the absence of these, visually impaired students are left to the mercy of others or spend hours scanning page after page of text books to be loaded on to computers so that screen-reading software (which allows the blind and visually impaired to access information on their PCs either or both) can be used," says Sushma Mehta, a former instructor with NAB, Delhi.

The NAB is trying to change what is a cruel reality for the visually impaired by using its in-house for the mini-computerized Braille press to publish textbooks and literature of general interest. All year round, the organization receives special requests from school and college students for transcriptions. NAB has covered substantial college-level material in Science, English and Education. With the help of Media Lab Asia, it hopes to provide material in 12 other subjects identified as being popular choices for visually impaired students within the next three years. These include Hindi, Sanskrit, Sociology, Philosophy, Law and Social Work.

There are several other organizations actively involved in developing new and varied methods of education. For instance, the Delhi-based All India Confederation of the Blind, which has more than 30 institutions of the blind associated with it, has set up a recording studio to prepare books for visually-challenged college students, a middle-level residential school along with a comprehensive resources centre, complete with a tactile museum, a Geography room, a science laboratory, a unit for adjustment training fort he recently visually impaired and a training programme for stenographers and computer operators. While the books are available across India, the residential school is located in Delhi.

Then there is the e-learning centre for the visually impaired, the first in India, which was opened over a year ago at the National Council of Education Research and Training, again in Delhi. The centre is the first in a series of institutions set up by the Central Government and UNESCO that hopes to make distance learning available to more than two million visually-challenged children. Ten Braille terminals were installed in the centre and connected to the 10 work-station on the Local Area Network.

Project officer Mohamed Miloudi, a UNESCO expert in Distance Education, says, "There are an estimated two million visually challenged children in India. It is thus crucial for the country's socio-economic development to introduce more efficient educational and training methods."

One of the obstacles delaying introduction of Braille technology into India untill now has been the cost of the technology. By designing a low-cost technology that can be manufactured within India, Miloudi has overcome that. With the new technology, a visually impaired student in Mumbai can connect to an expert or a teacher in Delhi or Los Angeles through e-mail.

The next step of the Indian project is setting up an open virtual liberty. Existing educational courses will be adapted and made accessible to the visually impaired, in addition to new courses produced for the Indian market. "If all goes well, we should see a centre of this type in every Indian state within a few years and a special terminal for the visually-challenged installed in e very cyber café across the country," adds Miloudi.

Initiatives like these have helped set a standard for education for the visually-impaired in India. "It's not enough, but at least, it's beginning," says Trivedi.

Source: Ray of Hope. The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 3 May 2006.

Top