For almost 10 years now, M. Rajan, an MTC bus driver, has been voluntarily taking night shifts. His mornings and evenings are dedicated to accompanying his sons, both visually challenged wherever they go and taking care of their every need.
All his efforts seemed vindicated on Monday as St. Louis School for the Blind, Adyar announced that his son, R. Jayaprakash had topped the school with a score of 1,117 in the class XII Higher Secondary Examinations. “I failed in twelfth standard and never went back to school. My son has taught me lessons in life,” said Mr. Rajan.
They cherish dreams of making it big someday, and in that nothing can deter them. Even as they were celebrating their success, many children who had overcome disability of every kind to prepare and appear for the XII examinations said it was the support they received from the families and schools which helped them perform well.
“Imagining and exploring facts about the earth, the rivers and countries – I love doing it,” said P.A. Sangeetha, who along with D. Vennila and S. Durgadevi - all students of Little Flower Convent Higher Secondary School for the Blind (LFC) scored the highest marks of 199 in Geography in the State.
Dealing with programs in Computer Science, and getting the Economics graphs charts right on the Braille slates to help scribes understand what they wanted to express was quite a task, the students said.
The school topper, V. Hemalatha with a score of 1,121 recalled the days when she studied in a mainstream school. “I felt inferior all the time then. It is good to be with people who are like me, and the teachers here have given me such confidence that I can manage with sighted people too,” she said.
Both Sangeetha and Hemalatha have partial visual disability, and wish to pursue B.A. in English literature. “The doctor said she was born blind because I married within family, and did not take care during pregnancy. I feel responsible for her all the time,” said Sarawathi, Hemalatha's mother.
While St. Louis school for the Blind and Little Flower Convent recorded 100 per cent pass percentage, only 20 of the 48 students of the Government Higher Secondary School for Blind, Poonamallee, succeeded in clearing the examination.
“We have 28 students who have failed in Economics and some in History and Political Science too. We have BT assistants teaching students due to the shortage of teachers, especially in Economics,” said a teacher of the school.
Children with hearing impairment recorded a result better than previous years. While 26 of the 30 who appeared from St. Louis School for Deaf succeeded, all 29 students of LFC managed to pass the exam.
“This year, our topper C.G. Sahithi has scored 961 out of 1,000 with centum in Accountancy and Commerce,” said a jubilant Vasanthi Brindha, principal, LFC.
“People do not realise that since deaf children have almost nil language input when they come to us, they find it very difficult to establish link between languages and would not know that ‘desapitah,' ‘bapu' and father of the nation mean the same,” she added.
Most of these students belonging to rural places live in hostels provided by the schools, and belong to lower middle class families.
With regard to students with physical disability, K. Ravichandran, Assistant Education Officer, Chennai Corporation, said that of the five such students of Chennai Schools who took the examination, three managed to pass.
Commenting on low number of students with physically disability attempting the examination, Mr. Ravichandran said, “It has been only a few years that mainstreaming is being taken seriously, hence more students are in lower classes.”
Our duties do not end here, said C.R. Sudhakar, principal, St Louis School for Blind. “From filling up college forms, to help them make right choices, we have to extend our association with the students till they get employed. All I hope now is a similar support system for these children as they venture out in the world.”
