Dipchand Bihari
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 8: With Class X board examinations barely two weeks away, a group of visually-challenged students of the Bhima Bhoi School for the Blind here have approached the school authorities with a request: they be allowed to have ‘writers’ (scribes) of their own choice to answer the examination questions.
This, instead of the usual practice of the school selecting ‘writers’ for them. The students number 12, and the school has a strength of over 300.
As per rules, each blind student is provided one scribe along with a helper to make the examination process easy. However, some students and their parents feel many of the scribes do not have the required ability or qualification to do this work for the students. This, by turn, affects the results.
In the past, many deserving students failed to get good marks, as the scribes provided to them allegedly did not properly translate their thoughts into answers at the examinations.
Performance of these students is largely affected in subjects like English, Mathematics, Science and Sanskrit, and students put the blame on scribes. “The scribes provided to us are often not aware of the symbols used in simple mathematical calculations. How can we count on them? A lot of time is taken in explaining the scribes even the basic things we want to say,” said a blind student (name withheld).
Another student said, “Many a time, we try to outperform in other subjects to compensate for the loss we suffer in Mathematics. In subjects like Sanskrit, scribes struggle to read and pronounce words written in Sanskrit. They even confuse us through their wrong pronunciations.”
Several students have requested for a change of examination centre from Capital High School at Unit III. Students say that whenever their examination centre happens to be Capital School, their results turn out to be bad, ostensibly due to poor quality of scribes provided to them by CHS.
“Most of the scribes at Capital School are not good compared to scribes in the Government Girls’ High School in Unit-IX. The scribes are often students studying in lower classes. I doubt if they attend classes regularly. These scribes don’t know the spellings of common words,” says another.
As per the records of the last four years, blind students have secured lower grades whenever the examination centre fell in Capital High School. “In the last three years, these students failed to get good grades. In 2013, as many as 12 students appeared for the examinations, and out of them, six passed and six failed. In 2013, three got first class while three passed in second class. One student failed and the rest passed. However, in 2014, eight students got C grade and the rest got B2 grade. When the examination centre fell in Govt High School, in 2012, 11 got first class and only one got second class,” said a student.
Headmaster of the school Gauranga Chandra Patra said, “As per the prescribed guidelines, the examination entre for blind students should be closer to their respective school. In this case, Capital High School is closest to us. I am not authorised to select the examination centre. Moreover, there is no such provision to give the blind students a chance to select their own scribes.”
Headmistress of Capital High School Sonamika Ray said there was no truth in the allegations. “We provide a separate room for blind students. We also provide good scribes during the exams. According to the rules, the scribe should be in class IX if he/she is appearing for a blind student in the Class X exam. So, I don’t think the allegation is true. We are doing our best for these students.”