Board Exams: Finding writers for visually impaired students a tedious task

INDORE: Dearth of writers for visually impaired students appearing in board examinations is a problem that arises every year. Students run pillar to post in search of writers and often are forced to give it a miss unable to find one.
But still no concrete steps have been taken by directorate of public instruction (Lok Shikshan Sanchalnalay) for these special children, who overcome all the odds to appear for the board exams.
Over 400 visually impaired students from Indore district and nearly 8000 visually impaired students from Indore division will appear for the board examination this year. And the problem is making them apprehensive and alarmed.
"Although it's easy to find a writer for visually impaired for competitive examinations, it becomes a tedious task during board examinations. Although its' duty of exam centre to provide a writer for visually impaired student, it's only on paper. In reality it's the visually impaired student that takes his own writer," coordinator of Sanjeevani Seva Sangam, Sunil Singh Tomar told TOI.
Writer needs to be one class junior as writer for visually impaired student for which it becomes a task for them to find a suitable writer as their exams and that of the regular students take place in almost the same time.
"The biggest task that students appearing for board exams face is finding an eligible writer, who is able to understand and write in a good speed. In Class 10, my friend and I were ditched by our writer and so this time, we decided to look for an additional writer to be sure," said visually impaired student Kamlesh Patel, who will be appearing in Class 12 exam this year.
Other issues faced by visually impaired students are slow speed, bad handwriting and low understanding capacity of writer. There have been times, when visually impaired students are unable to give board examination due to unavailability of eligible writer.
"We also have a writer bank for competitive exam as there are no rules for such exams except the fact that writer should have basic knowledge of computer as most exams are conducted online," development officer of National Association For The Blind (NAB), Sanjay Lokhande told TOI.
Moreover, there are times when new invigilator, who are unaware of rules end up wasting additional time in checking papers and asking for additional documents.