As tens of thousands of students prepare for a return to the good old-fashioned pen and paper, by class tenth and twelfth board exam The following month, students with special needs find themselves facing a different writers’ bump.
If looking for a separate, quiet room; frequent breaks; The extra time during exams was an arduous journey for Mahesh Dhangar himself – a visually impaired student of National College – which has put him in a deep end just before his board, that of an amanuensis (a man who writes ) commonly called a scribe – to write his exam. “Before, when I was with Happy Home School for the BlindThey helped arrange writers for our class X exams, but in college we hope to find writers of our own,” he says.
Despite technological advances and a general resolution passed by the Maharashtra government in 2016 to allow students with learning disabilities to access supporting writers with the online repository of authors set up by the state school education department, a level playing field still remains. For the different is far-fetched. The onus of students with disabilities who sit on the board is on them and their families to find a writer.
“Although over a thousand have signed up as authors, when contacted at the time of the exam, only 1% show interest,” says Reema Desaiwho founded Eye Dolls – Helping Hands for the Blind With her daughter Rugvedi after years of volunteering as a writer for visually impaired school children. “I have already received more than 15 author requests from Ruparel, St. Xavier’s and Ruia Colleges for class XII board examinees, but we do not have any junior writers in our bank,” she says.
The GR came on a suo motu petition after city-based psychiatrists Dr Harish Shetty and Dr Sanghanayak Meshram wrote a letter to the court on the decision to withdraw a writer’s facility for special students of the National Institute of Open Schooling, Pune. needed, a few days before his higher secondary examination.
While the guidelines order the writer to be at least one class shorter than the candidate, the GR makes concessions for an adult writer as a last resort, which disability rights activists claim most school management rejects. “He fears the author might help the student cheat,” says Desai. “And since most students who could double as writers are on the verge of their own final years and have projects to prepare, neither they nor their parents readily agree. ”
If the “one class lower” criterion for authors has substantially limited the number of volunteers, then two years of online schooling has disconnected seniors from sending an SOS to their juniors for help.
Mahesh says, “Neither I nor my class teacher have met the class XI students who are still taking online classes, so none of us can guess who is going to help me. Might be ready.” “Ever since we suddenly switched from online to offline, I have been nervous. Never got the time to get used to being in a regular classroom. I am scared because I cannot afford to lose an entire year,” says Mahesh, hoping local NGOs can help.
“Usually if schools take steps to create a bank of younger students to help seniors write their exams, it will bring some stability but no school does that. Hunting for class IX or XI is always up to the parents,” says Ummani Bagsarawala, who runs Pearls of Vision to assist the visually impaired with their educational needs. Despite having over 500 volunteers in its roster, the hunt for board exam writers never stops. “Since most of our writers are above 30. Graduate students manage to advance as they find juniors in college with the same enthusiasm for help. But for high school test takers, it’s an endless struggle.”
Dr Shetty, who has seen parents soliciting for a writer with and on social media, feels the stakes are high if these children’s unique needs are not immediately considered. “The national figures for children with special needs appearing for CBSE exams in 2020 were 0.31 per cent for class 10 and 0.20 per cent for class 12. State boards’ figures are worse, with millions of children undiagnosed,” he says, fearing that if forced to skip exams, these children may miss the developmental milestones and critical skills required for independent living. Will miss.
“The pandemic has made access and availability of writers more challenging. Identification of new students with learning disabilities has been low, but anxiety among children remains high. We need an order from the state that makes it mandatory for schools to provide writers for children with special needs. There are so many kids who are philanthropists,” he says, emphasizing the need for a writer bank with school principals, NGOs and mental health professionals “to end this crisis”.
If looking for a separate, quiet room; frequent breaks; The extra time during exams was an arduous journey for Mahesh Dhangar himself – a visually impaired student of National College – which has put him in a deep end just before his board, that of an amanuensis (a man who writes ) commonly called a scribe – to write his exam. “Before, when I was with Happy Home School for the BlindThey helped arrange writers for our class X exams, but in college we hope to find writers of our own,” he says.
Despite technological advances and a general resolution passed by the Maharashtra government in 2016 to allow students with learning disabilities to access supporting writers with the online repository of authors set up by the state school education department, a level playing field still remains. For the different is far-fetched. The onus of students with disabilities who sit on the board is on them and their families to find a writer.
“Although over a thousand have signed up as authors, when contacted at the time of the exam, only 1% show interest,” says Reema Desaiwho founded Eye Dolls – Helping Hands for the Blind With her daughter Rugvedi after years of volunteering as a writer for visually impaired school children. “I have already received more than 15 author requests from Ruparel, St. Xavier’s and Ruia Colleges for class XII board examinees, but we do not have any junior writers in our bank,” she says.
The GR came on a suo motu petition after city-based psychiatrists Dr Harish Shetty and Dr Sanghanayak Meshram wrote a letter to the court on the decision to withdraw a writer’s facility for special students of the National Institute of Open Schooling, Pune. needed, a few days before his higher secondary examination.
While the guidelines order the writer to be at least one class shorter than the candidate, the GR makes concessions for an adult writer as a last resort, which disability rights activists claim most school management rejects. “He fears the author might help the student cheat,” says Desai. “And since most students who could double as writers are on the verge of their own final years and have projects to prepare, neither they nor their parents readily agree. ”
If the “one class lower” criterion for authors has substantially limited the number of volunteers, then two years of online schooling has disconnected seniors from sending an SOS to their juniors for help.
Mahesh says, “Neither I nor my class teacher have met the class XI students who are still taking online classes, so none of us can guess who is going to help me. Might be ready.” “Ever since we suddenly switched from online to offline, I have been nervous. Never got the time to get used to being in a regular classroom. I am scared because I cannot afford to lose an entire year,” says Mahesh, hoping local NGOs can help.
“Usually if schools take steps to create a bank of younger students to help seniors write their exams, it will bring some stability but no school does that. Hunting for class IX or XI is always up to the parents,” says Ummani Bagsarawala, who runs Pearls of Vision to assist the visually impaired with their educational needs. Despite having over 500 volunteers in its roster, the hunt for board exam writers never stops. “Since most of our writers are above 30. Graduate students manage to advance as they find juniors in college with the same enthusiasm for help. But for high school test takers, it’s an endless struggle.”
Dr Shetty, who has seen parents soliciting for a writer with and on social media, feels the stakes are high if these children’s unique needs are not immediately considered. “The national figures for children with special needs appearing for CBSE exams in 2020 were 0.31 per cent for class 10 and 0.20 per cent for class 12. State boards’ figures are worse, with millions of children undiagnosed,” he says, fearing that if forced to skip exams, these children may miss the developmental milestones and critical skills required for independent living. Will miss.
“The pandemic has made access and availability of writers more challenging. Identification of new students with learning disabilities has been low, but anxiety among children remains high. We need an order from the state that makes it mandatory for schools to provide writers for children with special needs. There are so many kids who are philanthropists,” he says, emphasizing the need for a writer bank with school principals, NGOs and mental health professionals “to end this crisis”.
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