TNN Oct 3, 2013, 06.42AM IST http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-03/jaipur/42663605_1_laptops-meritorious-students-challenged-students Covering up its goof up on distributing normal laptops to visually challenged students, the state government has now sought information from the districts on more such students and placed orders to replace it with special enabled software and modified hardware.
Education department has ordered Braille display and screen reader software in the laptops to be given to the visually challenged students. The department has also decided to provide training to these students at the divisional headquarters. "So far, we have identified 72 such students and asked officials in all the districts to find more such cases if any. We are rectifying the mistake and orders have been given for the special software. We are expecting to upgrade these machines by mid-October," said a senior official of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, education department. "Usage of software and Braille is complicated so we will provide them training. For that each student will be called on the expense of government and taught how to use them," added the official. State government is providing 14-inch laptops to meritorious students of Classes 8, 10, 11 and college students under the Rajiv Gandhi Digital Vidyarthi Yojna. The government however has also included visually challenged students in the scheme who have cleared their Class 8 exams and have 70% attendance in class. Minister for education Brij Kishore Sharma expressed his ignorance over the issue but pointed fingers at RajCOMP for the blunder. "We were not directly involved in procuring the laptops. RajCOMP was mandated to do it on our behalf. I just got to know about this mistake from the media but no official complaint has been received by me so far. If it has happened then it is indeed a playing a joke on students. We will replace the machines or make them friendly for such students", said Sharma. -- Avinash Shahi M.Phil Research Scholar Centre for The Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
