Kerala: White Board helps special kids grasp online lessons

KOCHI: When the online class programme, First Bell, was launched by the education department on June 1, Muhaseena Abdul Jabbar, an intellectually-disabled Class VII student of Kayamkulam GHSS, too attended them through Victer’s channel. However, she hardly gained anything from the session as her disability challenged her comprehensive power.
But now, like thousands of differently-abled students in the state, she is able to grasp the online sessions as the government has tailormade classes to suit their disabilities as part of its inclusive education initiative — White Board.
“We never thought online classes would help our daughter due to her intellectual disability, but White Board made the process simple. She is happy as she can grasp the lessons now,” said Abdul Jabbar, Muhaseena father.
The White Board project, which envisages providing lessons to the differently-abled kids through various media suitable to overcome the physical or mental challenges each of them face, is now helpful for around 1,25,000 differently-abled students in government/ aided schools across the state. It is implemented with the help of around 2,500 resource teachers in 168 block resource centres (BRC) under Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK) in association with schools.
The lessons cater to the students belonging to six kinds of disability categories — visually impaired, hearing impaired, special learning disability, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability and autistic spectrum. These videos are uploaded on the YouTube channel of SSK White Board and the links are shared by respective resource teachers in WhatsApp groups of differently-abled student allotted to them in each BRC.
“The use of graphics and animation make the videos more interactive and comprehensible. The project has been successful in making the online education inclusive,” said S Y Shooja, IEDC state programme officer and coordinator of Whiteboard.