Pune Campus Watch: SPPU wants equal rights for disabled students, establishes centre to respond to their needs

“Has anyone ever thought about what happens to hearing-impaired students after they pass out of special school which is up to class 10 or 12? There are no special colleges, so he goes to a regular one where the teachers do not know sign language. Most students cannot follow what is being taught. Since they cannot hear, they are expected to lip read. They get low marks. Has anyone studied the impact this has on their confidence? It is questions like these that we need to ask and come up with solutions,” said Chetan Diwan, Chairman, Board of Studies, Disability Studies at Savitribai Phule Pune University.

To grapple with such issues that plague the disabled community, the SPPU has approved the centre. “We need to go beyond lip service, a huge human resource is available and is getting lost because we are not equipping them or thinking about them. If the students enrol in regular colleges and institutes, what are the problems of access that they face? Are there public transport to reach colleges and ramps and handlebars to reach classrooms? And even that is not all. The curriculum needs to be disabled-friendly; do we have that kind of study material? Are teachers sensitised, if they teach in a hybrid mode, do they realise what challenges a disabled student may face? And even disabilities are of 21 types, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. For a long time, we have turned a blind eye to the needs of this community. That is why this Centre has been established, to respond to their needs,” said Diwan.

Established under the Disability Board of Studies, one of the main focuses of the centre is to introduce new certificate, diploma and degree courses in the area of disability studies, said vice-chancellor Dr Nitin Karmalkar. A few are already planned like a certificate course in counselling and mental health, a three-month course on sign languages especially aimed at teachers, autism-related courses, a course for parenting of special children aimed at parents and refresher courses for faculty on mental health and so on. Besides starting courses, working with departments and colleges to introduce a disability-friendly syllabus, digitisation of available resources and providing reference books are some of the main functions of the department.

“We needed one centre where all mental health and disability functioning can be streamlined. For example, if one wants to know how many disabled students are currently enrolled in university departments or affiliated colleges and what kind of disability, these pieces of information should be available at a click. Or if a disabled student wants some book or reference material or someone needs to reference provisions of the Disability Act, a complete resource centre for disabilities is needed,” said Karmalkar.

While millions of students across India struggled for access to online education during the Covid-19 pandemic, the specific needs of students with disabilities remain largely ignored. A study by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy released in December showed that the absence of adequate teaching-learning materials, the unaffordability of digital devices, the inability to understand classes and complete work and the unavailability of sign language interpreters for television classes were among the challenges faced by students with disabilities. The challenges later became the subject of a case filed by Javed Abidi Foundation in the Supreme Court, asking the government to frame guidelines to ensure that students with disabilities can participate equally in online classes.

“Several studies have taken place, so much data is available on how disabled students are lost in the higher education space. It is because of issues of accessibility but no one wants to resolve it. The rights of disabled persons are trampled upon or easily ignored. As a university, we need to ensure that we bring some standardisation in terms of services to this community,” said Diwan.