Want of a child
It is unfortunate for the thousands of visually impaired students around the country that the government has still not been able to provide them with adequate reading materials. The official apathy, complain the blinds, has thus barred them from being as competent as their other normal friends. The real problem emanates from the lack of books written in Braille, which is a medium for self-study for the blind who can read the script by touching it as it is carved on thick paper. The blind students are thus facing problems in studying subject like geometry in which use of pictures and graphics is extensive. Although this particular script is believed to have been introduced in Nepal some 40 years ago, it has not been properly developed to meet the needs of the currently 15,000 lightless school-going children. Only around 10,000 books have been drafted in Braille for this handicapped lot. The Nepal Netrahin Sangh, an organisation founded for the welfare of the blind, has explicitly said that mere 6,000 school books worth Rs 3.5 million has been distributed to the schools. Clearly then, the production of the books is far from adequate to fulfil the actual demand.
According to the Sangh, the country has 74,000 visually impaired population of the school-going age, and out of this only 15,000 have actually reached the school level under the government’s school education programme for the blind. However, if the state has not even been able to cater to the needs of this lot, it is doubtful how its other welfare schemes are being run to bring meaningful changes in the lives of all the poor and deprived blind kids. Obviously, these children desperately require state support to enhance their skill, and deserve to be provided with basic textbooks. This is the least that the government can do to alleviate their plight. Children in such a special category have already earned compassionate attention and treatment thereof. State policies should thus aim at offering them with enough opportunities to help them help themselves.