Exam a cakewalk for visually-challenged students in city, thanks to expert scribes

Coimbatore: Thursday’s class XII board exam turned out to be a cakewalk for J Bhavani, a visually-challenged student from the city, thanks to a scribe, who put down on paper the answers she dictated. Though she was given an extra hour to complete the exam, Bhavani finished it at 1:15pm, along with her friends.
Like Bhavani, about 40 differently-abled students from the city are appearing for the board exam because of teachers, who act as scribes.

A teacher, who used to act as scribe for visually-challenged students, said he was amazed by their memory. “The words they utter are sharp and most of the time, they wouldn’t revise what they aid,” he said. While attending language papers, he never saw them fumble when they had to quote from the textbook, he said.

Education department officials said invigilators are deputed to act as scribes. “Earlier, there was a rule that a subject teacher cannot act as a scribe for the same exam. But, later it was changed as subjects like physics and accountancy need the scribes who know the symbols well,” an official said. The scribes are paid the same as an invigilator.

While the scribes are deputed by the education department for board exams, for term exams, schools opt volunteers to write for differently-abled students. Sunitha Sivaraman, 40, a homemaker who volunteers as a scribe for a couple of schools in the city, said she was surprised to find out how fluent the students were. “At first I couldn’t keep up with the pace in which they were answering,” she said.

Sunitha said that many such students recognised her voice when she appeared as the scribe for them for a second time. “They would also tell me the marks they got in the previous exams I wrote for them and would thank me,” she said.

She practises writing a few pages before appearing for the exams, Sunitha said. “This is to get my handwriting in shape,” she added.

For board exams, differently-abled students have been categorised as visually-challenged and dyslexic students, who have been given scribes and an extra hour to finish the exam. Hearing-impaired students have been exempted from writing language papers.