SHILLONG, MAY 21: They are the harbinger of hope to the hopeless and “courage personified” to many of their ilk as they demonstrate that blindness have not stopped them from dreaming and working towards their dreams.
Overcoming obstacles is but just a challenge to these real life heroes as they went on to compete and excel shoulder to shoulder with other normal children. This is exactly the story of nineteenth differently-abled students of the Jyoti Sroat School, a special school under the Bethany Society, who were among the successful candidates in the HSSLC and SSLC results declared on Monday.
Apart from being visually impaired most of these children also belong to poor family. While most of us might be drown in an abyss of grief if encountered with such a situation, but these brave-hearts have shown the world that their physical disabilities and economic weakness cannot limit their dreams as they successfully cleared the board examinations.
Four of the twelve students even showed that they can do better than other fortunate children by securing first division in the SSLC examination with letters in Social Studies and Khasi to boot.
The four who passed in first division includes – Umjerksiar Kharpor, who secured 66.33 percent marks with letter in Social Studies, Aitimon Kharbani (65.66 %), Hitler Singh Khongphai with letters in Khasi and Social Studies (62%) and Amabilis Mulieh who also got letter in Khasi (60.66%).
In the HSSLC (Arts) while five students, who are also the first batch of the school, secured the second division, two others bagged the third division.
Established in 1992 as a special school for the visually impaired, the school has rendered a commendable service towards the educational needs of specially-abled students. The school was recognized as an inclusive school in 1996.
One of the students, Hitler Singh Khongphai, who hails from Mawkhliaw, a remote village near Pynursla in East Khasi hills district, gave credit to his teachers for the knowledge they imparted and the efforts they have put in to help him and his friends to face the challenge successfully.
Though he comes from a poor family which is obviously a major issue, but that has not stopped Khongphai from aiming to become an IAS officer as he says he is determined to work hard and pursue his further studies and achieve his dreams despite the family hardship.
Like Khongphai, Gabriel Nongrum and Rimeki Pajuh who are preparing to joined the new institutions for their degrees after clearing the HSSLC board exams also aimed to become lawyer and teacher.
Acknowledging that the mainstream institutions will be a different environment altogether, Nongrum said, “I know I will not be pampered like my teachers does here all these years, but yes I will make as many friends as possible to overcome the challenges so that we can adapt ourselves to real-life situations.”
However there are certain challenges that the MBOSE has to resolve to make the board examinations more differently-abled friendly.
Khongphai, who is avisually impaired said, one of the main challenges faced by them during the examination was that they cannot write and have to depend on the “scribes”, who are not really specialized in this field. The role of the scribe was to verbally tell the question to such candidate and write down whatever the answers the candidates dictates.
Saying that he expected better marks, Khongphai said the scribe could not really communicate with the candidates with signs and symbols in the mathematics and the pronunciation when it comes to English subject.
“We urged the board to appoint scribes who are professional so that they can communicate well with the candidates and in turned the candidates can also performed well in the exams,” Khongphai said.
Elated by students’ performance, the school principal Rosa Wahlang said, “The results this year is the efforts put in by both the teachers and the students,” adding “The foundation also plays a very important role apart from having trained teachers.”
Admitting the challenges faced by the students, Wahlang said, “If the state government can screen and put some standard for the scribes, it will help the students to perform better because when we talk about visually impairment, it all depends on communication skills.”
Wahlang also suggested that the state government can introduce an online examination for such students. She said, “There is software called “JAWS” specially designed for such visually impaired people for the purpose.” She informed that the school had conducted such examination by using computers for its class IX students, and the results was quite impressive.- By Our Reporter
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