The Hindu : For them, getting good scribes is the real test

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

For them, getting good scribes is the real test

By Divya Sreedharan

BANGALORE, MARCH 6. Nagarathna is all concentration as her fingers move on her Braille textbook. She is in the 10th standard and her examination result depends on how good her scribe is.

She is one of the eight students at the Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind at J.P. Nagar here, preparing for the SSLC examination.

The headmistress of the academy, T.K. Lakshmi, says they choose scribes carefully. "Our children have always done well in the SSLC examination," she adds.

Madhu Singhal, founder trustee of Mitra Jyothi, a non-governmental organisation that works with the visually impaired, says when she was doing her degree, her scribe was a 10th standard student. "I had to leave out two important questions because she was slow," she adds. Now, students like Nagarathna get an hour more for examinations. But, for many, getting good scribes is tough.

Earlier, only a student from the school of the candidate had to be a scribe. In 2002, the Primary and Secondary Education Department relaxed the norms allowing candidates to choose "anyone" as scribe. Ms. Singhal says the order remains on paper. "We have many housewife-volunteers ready to help such candidates, but many schools still insist that a younger student of that school be chosen instead," she says.

Pradeep Kumar, Assistant Commissioner of Disabilities, admits to such problems. "We got the rules relaxed because students did badly," he explains. Last March, 520 disabled students (including some visually impaired) wrote the SSLC examination. Only 217 passed.

Mr. Kumar says the plight of the hearing impaired is much worse. "They depend on sign language which can be faulty. As a substantial percentage kept failing, we asked the Education Department to append green stickers on their answer sheets," he adds.

Ms. Singhal says the visually impaired need more facilities. "They must be allowed to use computers with speech (JAWS) software, or write in Braille," she adds. Such issues do not disturb Nagarathna. She is busy studying Science, her favourite subject. Even if she does well in Science in the 10th standard, she cannot pursue it in pre-university. Vidya Kulkarni, her Mathematics and Science tutor, says the visually impaired can learn only History, Economics, and Political Science in pre-university because "they cannot do the experiments Science requires."

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