When Will The Rest Of India Follow?

The Department of Primary and Secondary Education in Karnataka, is considering sweeping changes in the state granting first-of-its-kind concessions to persons with disabilities during exams. For a start, the rule requiring the hiring of a scribe who is lesser qualified than the visually impaired student, is set to be relaxed. The department, on an experimental basis for the next one year, shall allow any person identified by the disabled to act as scribes. Disabled students may inform the block education officer concerned or Deputy Director of Public Instruction about the preference of scribe before the commencement of examinations, Instructions to the director of SSLC Board to arrange orientation training programmes for the examination supervisors are also in the pipeline.

Both hearing and visually impaired students are expected to get one extra hour while appearing for Class VII and X exams so that they get sufficient time to understand the questions and mentally prepare the answers.

Efforts are also being made by the Office of the Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, under the aegis of Assistant Commissioner, Shri Pradeep Kumar, to make classrooms and toilets disability friendly. Thus, a circular, to be issued by the department to all educational institutions, will direct them to make provisions for conducting classroom sessions to the disabled students in the ground floor and also to make provisions for a disable-friendly toilet in the school premises.

Source: Disabled to have it easy in exams,Times of India, April 30, 2002, Bangalore