Abrar. A Mattoo
SRINAGAR, March 15: There are only two residential schools for the visually impaired students in Jammu and Kashmir. These schools have a pathetic capacity in terms of admitting the students.
The boy’s residential school for these students at Jammu has a disappointing intake capacity of merely 40 students.
This capacity is immensely disproportionate, considering the census report of 2011, according to which 2.8 lakh people, more than 2% of the population are suffering from one or other sort of visual impairment in the erstwhile state of J&K.
Also, ever since the use of pellet guns was started by security forces as a means of crowd control in 2010, a significant increase has been seen in the previously heaping numbers of the visually impaired in Kashmir valley.
“Kashmir valley, in particular, has no government-run school that could specifically cater to the needs of visually impaired students. Here or there, these visually impaired students are huddled into schools that are intended for physically challenged students,” Mohammad Arif, a student of 12th standard, studying at National Institute for the empowerment of persons with visual disability, at Dehradun, India told Kashmir Despatch.
He added that besides being inefficient these schools do not accommodate the majority of visually impaired students, because when we consider the staggering numbers of the blind in J&K, there aren’t many schools.
Acknowledging Mohammad Arif’s claim, when District Social Welfare Officer, Mohammad Ashraf Akhoon spoke to Kashmir Despatch, he testified that the only school in Kashmir that the department of social welfare handled was Abhinandan School for disabled children where the roll of visually impaired students was less than 10 students.
“We got custody of Abhinandan school from a particular foundation. Before that, we had no government-run schools for the disabled people—at least not in Srinagar,” Mr. Akhoon added.
In addition to the lack of schools to pursue education, the visually impaired students allege that Jammu Kashmir Board Of School Education (JKBOSE), has effectively made education an impossible task for them.
“I have been appearing in CBSE examinations at Delhi, because JKBOSE doesn’t let you avail a scribe—even if it does, they’d push you from a pillar to post to complete the formalities, which is very hectic for both the writer and the visually impaired students,” added Murtaza Ahmad, a visually impaired student in 10th the standard.
The unavailability of scribes is a major issue that forces the migration of visually impaired students from JKBOSE to CBSE institutes outside J&K.
Those helpless visually impaired students, who have no option but to attend private schools are forced to attend lectures in normal classrooms because JKBOSE has no guidelines that would enforce a special curriculum to be taught to visually impaired students.
“As a visually impaired student, I need a Braille system to pursue education, but I don’t get that,” said Arsalan Showkat, a visually impaired student at Sauliha Sublime—a private institution.
“At CBSE schools, the syllabus is the same for a visually impaired as well as a normal student, but the pattern of marking, teaching and, holding exams is different for the visually impaired students. There are specialized teachers too,” Mohammad Arif added on JKBOSE’s incapacity to deal with this issue.
According to another visually impaired student, all these aspects and many more, are dissuading 22 numerous visually impaired students who are enthusiastic towards studies, because many cannot surpass these hurdles.
The chairperson JKBOSE, Ms. Veena Pandita was indisposed to speak to Kashmir Despatch, despite repeated attempts to reach her.
However, for the social welfare department, it seems a meagre pension is all that it can deliver to the visually impaired students or physically challenged in general.
“When it comes to the visually impaired we have taken their responsibility in this sense that we provide them financial assistance of 1000 rupees per month,” said a high-ranking official in the social welfare department.
