What's to love
After so many “routine and already talked about” colleges in Delhi, let's visit a college which doesn't conduct regular courses and where you might not find chirpy girls and happy-go-lucky guys. Instead, you come across some special students. We are talking about the Durgabai Deshmukh College of Special Education (Visual Impairment).
With a total of just 34 students, the college offers a degree course in B.Ed. Funded by National Institute for the Visually Handicapped, Dehradun, this college got affiliated to the Delhi University in 2006, and since then the college runs with the help of the Blind Relief Association (BRA).
With students drawn from different States and a couple of married women students, their gathering, during the one-hour lunch break at their favourite hangout at the front lawns becomes special every day. Here, they eat from the canteen nearby, discuss their classes, families or just chill. Here the students, helped by their counterparts endowed with normal vision, to reach the canteen or fetch food, provide a moving sight. For a few students, however, library serves as their favourite hangout. The college also has a hostel for the students who are all praise for their teachers. “The teachers simplify everything for us, and I think it's the USP of our college”, says Shiv Shankar Kapoor, a student.
What's not to
The students complain of having no time because of all-day long classes and they do not get the feel of a college. And during the lunch break, the small canteen cannot even accommodate their small population at the same time. Moreover, the canteen lacks variety. The students complain of having fewer seats in the college and demand that more students should be admitted. They also feel that since their college and the course are not talked about, an awareness drive is very much required.
Alternatives
“The cricket and the volleyball matches in the front lawns in the evening after classes refresh us,”says, Abhishek a student. Some students are often seen singing and dancing during their free moments. The students also feel that such a course that they are studying at this college, would minimise the need for special schools. Kavindra, a student says, “The students with normal vision would soon be accommodated with visually impaired students in colleges. This would sensitise them towards our handicap and also help in growing affinity among them. For special teachers, it would be a smooth exercise to get into the visually impaired students' psychology.”
