It is that time of the year when every student preparing for the Plus-Two examination would be contemplating the course and the college to study. While the options are wide open to a majority, it is not the case with students with disabilities.
It is that time of the year when every student preparing for the Plus-Two examination would be contemplating the course and the college to study. While the options are wide open to a majority, it is not the case with students with disabilities.
While use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has ensured the differently abled lead an inclusive life, this has however not succeeded in providing them physical access to public places. This is significant from the representations they have time and again made demanding a barrier-free environment.
While most differently-abled have easy use of audio-visual aids, equipment, computers and softwares to assist them, what remains elusive is the physical access to various places as they are not disabled-friendly. This is in terms of absence of ramps, lifts to accommodate wheel chairs, modified washrooms, etc. This becomes critical when these places are schools / colleges / universities.
A majority of those with disability are not interested in pursuing higher education because the institutions do not provide an environment conducive to them. Even those who choose to pursue higher education are those with lesser percentage of disability.
Persons with disability of 70 per cent and above, and others who are confined to wheel chairs do not prefer to go to colleges because the infrastructure is not suited to their condition. This is the repeated grouse that students with disabilities and their parents face every year during admission time.
Though there is an Act - The Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 - to ensure equal opportunities, higher education still remains a distant dream. But the recent Supreme Court ruling that “people with disability have the right to get higher education and not making adequate provisions to facilitate their proper education would amount to discrimination” is expected to bring in some respite.
The apex court, on December 16, 2017, asked the educational institutions to comply with the provisions of the Act failing which appropriate action will be taken against them. The verdict from a Bench comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan came in response to a plea filed in 2006 by Disabled Rights Group espousing the cause of a girl with disability - bound to a wheelchair - who was forced to study in a private law institution that was not disabled-friendly because she was not able to study at the National Law University, Bengaluru.
The petitioner had said that in spite of the Act a barrier-free campus had not been provided. The required modifications in terms of aids and appliances of lectures, curricula, laboratories, libraries, examinations, classrooms and hostels had not been taken seriously. And, there was no Government mechanism to check whether the provisions of the Act were acted upon by the institutions.
The Court directed the institutions to provide 5 per cent reservation quota for persons with disability, and ensure a disabled-friendly campus in terms of access and pedagogy.
The suggestions made by the petitioner, especially for the orthopaedically and visually challenged, were found to be reasonable by the apex court. A significant direction was made to the University Grants Commission (UGC) to monitor the fulfilment of the reservation quota fixed for students with disability. It was also asked to constitute a committee to consider guidelines for accessibility of disabled students in universities and colleges. The SC said that the committee would undertake a detailed study to make provisions in respect of accessibility and facilities of teaching for disabled persons and would also suggest the modalities for implementing those suggestions, their funding and monitoring.
"The expert committee may also consider feasibility of constituting an in-house body in each educational institution (of teachers, staff, students and parents) for taking care of day-to-day needs of differently abled persons as well as for implementation of the schemes that would be devised by the expert committee," the Bench added.
The Court directed that the entire process be completed by June 30, 2018, and a report in this regard be submitted in July 2018.
The Court also noted that students with disabilities, under the 2016 Act, should be given an upper age relaxation of five years for admission in institutions of higher education.
"To ensure the level-playing field, it is not only essential to give necessary education to the persons suffering from the disability, it is also imperative to see that such education is imparted to them in a fruitful manner," it said.