Dear Friends, I am very happy to present a Plan of action of recently held a conference on the status of Braille in Asian region for your ready reference.
Plan of action : 1. Each participating country must ensure that its government in consultation with organizations of the blind, sets up an independent and effective National Braille Authority to oversee Braille development, supervise and coordinate production of Braille books and regulate standards of teaching Braille. If required, such a Braille Authority may be set up at the sub-regional level also for the Central Asian countries in view of their special and unique requirements. A suitably empowered Regional Braille Council should also be made operational at the ABU level. 2. Braille Contractions and Abbreviations must be simple and easy to learn for blind children and adults of different intellectual attainments. This may be one of the additional areas to be covered by National Braille Authorities. 3. A uniform Braille Mathematics and Science Code may be accepted for the region. Nemeth Code could serve as an important frame of reference for the purpose. Similarly, there should be an acceptable system of Braille Computer symbols. This aspect, too, may be addressed by the proposed Braille Authorities. 4. All visually challenged children in the participating countries should be provided textbooks in Braille for the elementary and secondary stages of school education within the next 5 years. The use of audio material to substitute Braille textbooks must be totally shunned at the school stage. The special requirements of the production of Braille textbooks for the North-Eastern States of India and Central Asian countries need to be suitably addressed. 5. The working of the Braille printing presses should be suitably strengthened and coordinated. As far as possible, data-entry units may be set up on a larger scale with the facilities of Braille production and duplication to be made available at selected centres. 6. There should be closer net-working among data entry units and Braille production centres within the country, so that information about material available in Braille could be centrally located through a repository system and duplication avoided. 7. Braille production centres must ensure that they utilize cost-effective and proven printing technologies, so that these are not left un-operational for extended periods of time. These centres must also ensure that: a. The books produced are totally error-free through a system of appropriate editing and proof-reading; b. Their installed data entry and Braille printing capacity is fully utilized; c. Uniform guidelines are worked out to ensure that visual/pictorial materials involving activity-based learning, so widely used in children's textbooks, today, are suitably converted and presented in comprehensible tactile/descriptive formats. 8. Textbooks in Braille should be made available to school children either free of cost or be heavily subsidized, in view of the extremely vulnerable economic status of families of visually challenged children and their Institutions. The national governments and the State Bureaus of Textbooks should take the lead and provide Braille textbooks free as is being done in the case of print textbooks. 9. In order to provide easy and ready access to the plethora of books coming out in print these days, it is necessary that printers and book-publishing houses are persuaded to adopt an e-printing format compatible with the requirements of Braille conversion. The objective is that as soon as a book appears in print, it should be possible to bring out its Braille edition through suitable Braille conversion of e-text format. 10. The demands and EiDfl I requirements of college going visually impaired students in respect of books in Braille at affordable costs, should also be addressed. For this purpose, it is essential that such books are produced in Braille and libraries of colleges and universities be persuaded and motivated to procure copies for visually challenged students enrolled with them. Braille printing presses must pay attention to this vital sector as well. 11. Public libraries functioning at the level of districts should be helped to run a Braille section for the benefit of blind readers in the given area. Such Braille sections, it should be ensured, are suitably updated and are really accessible to users and are really used by readers. 12. All programmes of inclusive education in the participating countries must give special importance to teaching visually challenged children Braille and related plus curriculum skills. No visually challenged child should be placed in an inclusive setting unless arrangements for such crucial teaching of Braille and related skills are in place. For this purpose, organizations of the blind and other professionals must undertake advocacy and lobbying on a large-scale so that inclusive education becomes really meaningful and is not confined to mere placement of the visually challenged child in the class-room. 13. The global campaign of Education For All Visually Impaired Children (EFAVIC) launched by ICEVI and WBU as also WBU's "Right to Read" campaign must focus on providing easy access to Braille and arrangement for teaching of Braille, in all their services and activities. 14. Reading and writing Braille should be made a compulsory subject for all mainstream teacher-training courses (B. Ed., Diploma in Elementary Education etc.). 15. Teaching of Braille should be given much greater importance and weightage in all distance education B. Ed. (Special Education, Visual Impairment) courses. For this purpose a minimum of two months' face-to-face programme of teaching 16. As regards regular courses of B. Ed. (Special Education Visual Impairment), reading and writing of Braille must receive due focus in terms of curriculumtransaction and total weightage of marks. Upto 20% of the total marks may be allocated for the subject. 17. Efficient Braille reading and writing skills must be accepted as an essential qualification for recruitment of a teacher of visually challenged children. There should be a provision for periodic tests/evaluation of Braille proficiency for persons working as teachers of visually challenged children. Every blind child must, as a matter of right, be provided with basic Braille writing devices appropriate to the situation and requirements of the concerned country. 18. New and more challenging techniques and methods of teaching Braille should be introduced for blind children. 19. and suitable orientation courses be organized for Braille teachers, on a regular basis. General classroom teachers should also be provided basic sensitizationorientationto Braille skills. 20. Braille reading readiness and pre-Braille training must form an integral part of all programmes of early intervention for blind children and their families. A specific curriculum - what to teach and how to teach - should be worked out with regard to Braille-education at the elementary school stage. 21 In order to increase the visibility and functional relevance of Braille: a. Public utilities and consumer products of day-to-day use may carry Braille labels/markings; b. Telephone/electricity bills, telephone directories, bus/rail time-tables, hotel menus etc. may also be made available in Braille; c. Braille should be accepted as an important optional subject for study for interested students at school andunder-graduate stages. 22. Greater awareness may be generated about Braille among parents of blind children and sighted volunteers in rural and urban settings by conducting short duration training programmes. 23. Braille reading competitions may be organized more frequently in State and regional languages. 24. Project officers and a few field workers employed in CBR projects, must have proficiency in Braille reading and writing, so that they could provide necessary basic training in Braille to visually challenged clients in rural areas. 25. Asian Blind Union should undertake the responsibility of monitoring progress on the implementation of the Plan of Action proposed hereinabove, with the help of its national affiliates. These affiliates should strive for ensuring that the Plan is properly implemented in their respective countries and should submit periodic reports to ABU Secretariat. Yours Sincerely, Praful Vyas, Hon. Secretary, Andhjan Kalyan Trust, Behind Jain Derasar, Station Plot, Dhoraji-360410. Dist. Rajkot, Gujarat, India. E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Website: http://www.aktrust.org Phone: 91-2824-223502, Fax: 91-2824-223502, Mobile: +919428261878. 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