Stating that the current examination grading system fails to properly evaluate visually-impaired students, Ramchandra Gaihre, general secretary of Blind Youth Association Nepal (BYAN) urged the relevant authorities to make necessary arrangements for making the exams blind-friendly.
“Many questions in mathematics, science and even social studies contain graphs and figures and these cannot be written in braille,” said Kaladhar Bhandari, chairman of BYAN at an interaction in the capital on Thursday.
Bharat Chaulagain, a visually-impaired student who passed his SLC exams three years ago said he became frustrated after failing the SLC just because of the problem with mathematics. “Out of 100 marks, we have to give up 24 marks from geometry because we cannot see the figures. This makes it difficult for us to score even pass marks,” he said.
“Although I'm very interested in science, I couldn't pursue science due to my physical condition and related challenges. Teachers and the study environment aren't friendly to us. Let there be an environment where our disabilities would not hinder us from becoming what we want to be,” added Chaulagain.
Visually-impaired students sitting for the SLC exams are entitled to a ninth grader assistant writer. However, lack of remuneration for the assistants and clashing exam calendars make it difficult to find assistants. Additionally, inability of some assistants to understand the visually-impaired examinees has been causing them to lose marks unnecessarily.
Lhakpa Sherpa, principal of Laboratory High School stressed that alternative to figure-based questions should be created for the visually-impaired students. “In the long-term, the government should aim to make examinations technology based for visually-impaired. This will eliminate the need for assistant writer and alternative questions for them,” he added.
Chief guest at the interaction, Khagendra Prasad Nepal, who is also the head of the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE), assured that the exam environment would be fully blind-friendly from the next session. “Although we cannot do much to make the questions of the upcoming SLC visually-impaired friendly, we will leave no stone unturned to resolve the problem next year. We will also try to give some incentives to assistant writers so that they feel motivated and willing to help the visually-impaired,” he added.
Over 500,000 students are preparing to appear in the upcoming SLC examinations which will begin on March 31. Around 100 visually-impaired students appear in the for SLC examinations from across the country every year, according to BYAN.
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