There is no standard system for the visually impaired to take exams in Braille in India. Availability of books in Braille is also a problem.
Shyam Kishore began his classes of Braille, a script based on touch for visually impaired persons to read and write. All students with their Braille slate started to write sentences dictated by Kishore, and got completely engrossed in their learning. Abhishek, one of the students, wrote, 바카라I live in Delhi바카라 faster than a sighted person wrote the same on paper.
바카라I like Braille,바카라 he said with a chuckle.
Kishore, who himself is visually impaired, is a massage trainer at the Blind Relief Association, a Delhi-based NGO working for the empowerment of visually impaired persons. He started to train his students in Braille last year. He believes that Braille is 바카라very important바카라 for a blind person to become 바카라self-dependent바카라 and 바카라every visually impaired should learn Braille바카라.
All of his students have learnt basic Braille 바카라 they can read and write alphabets, but not more than that, as most of them studied only till high school. These students are enrolled in a vocational course to become professional masseurs, but are also eager to learn Braille, which is a medium for them to communicate with other visually impaired persons.
바카라All of the communication of visually impaired persons is oral, so Braille provides an alternative with which we can communicate among ourselves,바카라 said Kishore.
Developed by French educator Louis Braille in 1824, Braille was a crucial invention that helped visually impaired persons to access reading and writing. It was a complicated system but it was later simplified. It consists of raised dots arranged in a 바카라cell바카라. It is based on the permutation and combination of these dots. Each cell represents a word, a punctuation mark, a numeral and a combination of letters.
Louis Braille knew that language is political, and access to communication can help blind people to create an identity for themselves. He said, 바카라Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the visually impaired] are not to go on being despised or patronised by condescending sighted people.바카라
At the time of Independence, there were around 11 different Braille codes in India. The Indian government wanted to develop a standard code for Indian languages in braille. This led to the development of 바카라Bharati Braille바카라. It was for all official languages 바카라 Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Punjabi, Assamese, Malayalam, Nepali, Odia, Telugu, and Urdu.
Bharati Braille is based on phonetics rather than alphabets, so it focuses on sound. 바카라Bharati Braille helped in linguistic inclusion,바카라 said C P Mohanan, an official at the Blind Relief Association.
Most of the institutes prefer teaching English Braille, but that is not a problem, according to Kishore. He said, 바카라If you know English Braille, it is not tough to learn Bharati Braille.바카라 But the biggest challenge is that Braille is not widely recognised. Except in special schools for the visually impaired, schools don바카라t teach in Braille. Their learning largely takes place in audio form. Taking exams too would require them to look for a 바카라professional scribe바카라.
Anand Singh, a visually impaired graduate, said, 바카라The peon of my college used to write my exams, because I was not able to find writers.바카라
In India, there is not a standard system for visually impaired students to take exams in Braille.
바카라What is wrong with taking exams in Braille?바카라 Singh asks. Also, books translated in Braille get heavy and costly which is also a big concern.
There are now various softwares for screen reading 바카라 JAWS, Kurzweil, Abbyy Fine Reader 바카라 that help visually impaired persons to listen to reading materials and take exams. Singh added, 바카라But these softwares are not easily accessible and can바카라t replace Braille. If you ask a visually impaired person who knows Braille, he will always prefer to have books in Braille, not in audio form.바카라
Kishore agreed to that, 바카라We need good books in Braille. There is a difference between Braille and audio books. Audio books make us dependent, but Braille helps us in not just reading but also writing our thoughts on the paper.바카라
Availability of books is the biggest problem, especially in science and commerce.
Ajay Kumar, another visually impaired student, thinks that the language of visually impaired people is incomplete without Braille.
Kumar said, 바카라This is the misconception that if you have audio books, you don바카라t need written books. A language is incomplete without a script, for us Braille is a script and a requirement for our communication.바카라