Kathmandu, August 18:

Sweta Sadan Higher Secondary School (SSHSS) is running higher secondary-level (10+2) classes for the hearing-impaired students in the valley from tomorrow.

This comes as a relief for the hearing-impaired students of the valley, which had no higher-secondary school to cater to their special needs.

School for the Deaf (SD), Naxal, has been providing education to the hearing-impaired students up to grade X.

Kapil Chandra Pokharel, deputy director of the SSHSS, said they are proud to be able to provide 10+2 education for the hearing-impaired students for the first time in valley.

The SSHSS is running classes of the grade XI from tomorrow with 10 hearing-impaired students, all of whom have enrolled themselves at the Education stream.

“We are in the initial phase. The Education stream has been chosen as other subjects, namely management and science, are technical in nature. Moreover, the students and parents also preferred this stream.”

“Due to shortage of funds, we will not be able to provide all required facilities to the students this year. We will run the classes by mobilising internal resources,” Pokharel said. We are trying to garner support from the government and NGOs so that we can provide education to many hearing-impaired children in the future, he said.

Prof Dr Upendra Koirala, vice-president of the Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB), lauded the SSHSS endeavour. “A deaf student is equally capable to be a teacher,” he said, calling on the government to take education

and job prospects of such children seriously. With 12 students passing the SLC this year, 42 hearing-impaired students in Nepal have passed the SLC till date, according to data. According to estimates, there are four lakh hearing-impaired people in Nepal.