Kathmandu, March 29

An updated Superintendents’ Directives Manual-2016 issued by the Office of the Controller of Examinations could deprive the differently-abled students of an additional hour to finish their School Leaving Certificate exams this year.

Clause (h) of Rule 1 of the manual states that a differently-abled SLC examinee, who is completely blind and whose both hands don’t work, can seek help of a Grade IX student and has to attempt the exam within three hours.

Clause (i) of Rule 1 states that a differently-abled SLC examinee, who is partially blind, hearing impaired, deaf, mentally retarded or those who are physically incapacitated, cannot complete their exam within the given time and will be provided with extra one and a half hours to complete their test.

Even the superintendents of exam centres are in a dilemma whether or not to give extra time to differently-abled examinees.

Saroj Bhakta Acharya, exam superintendent at Bungamati-based Adarsha Soul School, said, “Many differently-abled students could be deprived of extra time if this confusion was not cleared,” Acharya said.

However, the differently-abled students who are going to use a volunteer to write their paper are confident that they will get extra time during the exam.

Ganga Maya Kasalawat, a 10th grader of Jaycees Secondary School said she was preparing for the exam by coordinating with her writer, Rachana Saiju, a ninth grader from the same school.

“I have been studying day and night to pass the exam,” said Kasalawat, who is a cerebral palsy patient, adding that her hands get stiff when she starts writing.

Jaya Ram Gorkhali, principal, JSS, said Ganga cannot attempt all questions within three hours.

“Even hour-long extra time given to differently-abled students is not sufficient for students like her,” he added.

A visually-impaired examinee, Sujan Dhakal, a student of Namuna Machhindra Secondary School in Lagankhel, is also preparing hard, along with his writer for the exam, hoping that he will get extra time to write his paper.

“Even the hour-long extra time given to us is not enough, as we have to dictate to the writer,” he added. He claimed that he would not be able to complete his paper if extra time was not given to him.

Eighteen, two and three differently-abled examinees from Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur, respectively, have submitted their applications seeking support of a writer in exams, according to respective district education offices.

However, OCE doesn’t have any record regarding the number of differently-abled examinees.

Lakpa Sherpa, principal of Laboratory School-Kirtipur, who is also in the SLC Exam Board, said they had earlier decided to give one and a half hours of extra time to the differently-abled students, thus discrimination against differently-abled examinees was not possible.

He said that there was a need to clear this confusion before the beginning of exams.

SLC exams are going to begin on March 31 when 615,553 examinees will take the test.