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Rare distinction by school for visually challenged

BERHAMPUR: It was silver jubilee celebration of a different kind at Red Cross School for the Blind in the city on Saturday. With the declaration of results for the current year this school attained unique achievement of having cent per cent result in the annual Secondary School examination conducted by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) for 25 years in a row.

This year 12 students of the institution, including four girls, appeared for the examination.

Eleven of them passed in first division and one passed in second division. All the eight boys secured first division.

Among the girls three got first division and one got second division. But the toper of the school was a girl, Ahalya Pradhan. Last year nine students had appeared for the secondary school board examination and all of them had passed in first division. Speaking to The Hindu, principal of the school, Nabin Chandra Satapathy attributed this success to the joint effort of students and teachers.

Theco-educational residential school for visually challenged has classes from ‘preparatory level' to Class X. A student has to get admitted in ‘preparatory class' for one year before getting admitted into class I to learn the basic skills of learning for the blind like the Braille script.

Most of the students come from rural back ground and economically poor section of society. “We try to build up their self confidence during their tenure in the school and its hostel, which surely shows in the board examination,” Mr Satapathy said. Like other general students, these visually challenged students also appear the board examination at examination centres in other schools. This year they had appeared the examination at Medical Campus High School. Although they study through Braille, they have to appear their examination through the help of writers from lower class provided by the BSE. Despite these handicaps they continue to excel. The school was inaugurated in 1974 by former president V.V.Giri. It has started with miniscule student strength of four students. It now has 139 students. “We are proud of our past students as they have proved themselves in society,” the principal said. Students of this institute have become personnel of Central secretariat, professors of IGNOU, bank officials, teachers and other government servants.

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