Students say JNU blind to special needs

NEW DELHI: The absence of essential tools and software in need of updates are just two of the issues faced by visually challenged

students

in Jawaharlal Nehru

University

. Students complain that many schools don’t provide them with accessories like Braille machines and others do not have the software to help them read from e-texts. The recent case of Munesh Kumar, a Japanese Studies student, underlines the headaches that such students face.


Kumar attributed his failing grade in the exam to his department and said, “The tutor assigned to teach me Japanese never came on time, and the scribe at the exam only read the questions to me when he should have helped me write my answers.” He added that he was the “lone visually challenged student” at his centre, possibly why the administration couldn’t “provide me with reading material in Braille or a translator for Japanese”.

The Centre for Japanese Studies claimed that a tutor did visit, but Kumar “was never around”. However, the centre accepted that there was no Japanese reading material in Braille and that it lacked the funds to translate all books into Braille.

The students’ union has pinned the blame for this on the “recent fund cut” at the central library. Most visually challenged students say that the situation has become more difficult in the past couple of years when even new facilities for normal students were being curtailed for financial reasons. A former senior member of the library administration said, “We had planned a digitisation centre to convert all books in the central library into digital forms. But the plan is going nowhere because of the fund paucity.”

Dheeru Yadav, convenor of the Visually Challenged Students Forum Dheeru Yadav told TOI that he had also written to the administration vis-a-vis Kumar and pointed out how many schools and centres didn’t have adequate facilities. Text to audio software, screen readers and Braille converters are available only in the central library, not elsewhere. “Some professors don’t allow recording of lectures, claiming copyright. But this violates the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act,” Yadav claimed.

Many visually challenged students have taken up Kumar’s case and have written to the administration to ensure these shortcomings are looked into. Saket Moon, convenor of the Equal Opportunity Office, wrote to vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar asking why proper facilities were not extended to the Japanese Studies student and requested that “that he should be allowed to register for this semester despite his failure in the exam”.

Some visually affected students, however, appear to be quite happy with their centres. Gopal, who is enrolled in the Centre for Political Studies, asserted, “We are provided with all amenities, and have no issues.” He claimed to have availed of scribes at exams and declared there are adequate e-textbooks available for his studies. Gopal did concede, however, that for some students, “especially the ones studying languages” access to texts and books was difficult.

A senior official of the JNU administration also admitted, “It is true that some things are yet to be achieved and we are working on them”. But he also added, “We are providing the students with the

best

we can and we are already the top university when it comes to accessibility.”