BHOPAL: The school education department has come to the rescue of Children with Special Needs (CWSN) during corona pandemic. Visually impaired children and low vision students will be distributed daisy player and talking pen to facilitate their studies.
While normal students are receiving lessons through various online medium, children with special needs were on the receiving end. Considering that they might lag behind, the school education department has decided to distribute them these devices so that their studies do not suffer.
There are about one lakh three thousand students studying in state run schools across the state. Out of these there are about 2000 visually challenged while about 5000 students fall in ‘low vision’ category.
Daisy (Digital Accessible Information System) player is the emerging world standard for digital talking books. School education expert looking after CWSN, Vasudev Singh said that this device was meant for visually challenged while talking pen help low vision students.
Visually challenged students can download the books of their syllabus available for free on SUGAM portal of the government of India. The device- of the size of remote control- can play the chapters in sound. Students can rewind or forward the chapters through this device. They can also record a chapter being explained by the teacher in classroom.
All textbooks prescribed in state government’s course available on this portal. Moreover, other precious books that have copyright are also available for free for visually challenged students on this portal.
Talking pen is used for assistance for the low vision students. Special books are designed for the low vision students. These books have a bar code and when the student moves this pen on the lines of any chapter the talking pen- as the name suggests- speaks out those lines.
It needs to be mentioned that the syllabus for these students is same as that of normal students- only graphs and pictures are not used- in books meant specially for them.
