The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and the Samagra Shiksha in Tamil Nadu are working towards equipping visually-impaired teachers in the State with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills. Around 1,500 such teachers in Tamil Nadu are working in mainstream schools across the State. Hope Foundation, an NGO in association with Dell Technologies, has facilitated this initiative with the School Education Department.
“As many as 314 special educators, who are a part of the inclusive education wing of the Samagra Shiksha, will be trained to become resource persons for this programme. We have designed a curriculum approved by the SCERT to impart special ICT skill training for visually-impaired teachers, which these resource persons will facilitate in the coming months,” said Santhosh Peter Kagoo, State Program Coordinator, Hope Foundation.
The special curriculum includes how to use accessible readers, the School Education Department’s EMIS system, apps such as Zoom and Google Classrooms for online classes, and the DIKSHA app to access educational content. Tactile learning books have been prepared as resource material. While Phase 1 of this special ICT skill training module will focus on smartphones, phase 2 will deal with computers.
On Thursday, a workshop for special educators from eight districts was held in Chennai. K. Manjula, a special educator who attended the sessions, said that familiarising visually-impaired teachers with tools such as Google Classroom as well as accessing content online would help them take online classes in the future. After the special educators are trained as resource persons, the workshops for visually-challenged teachers are expected to begin in January 2022. “This is a good opportunity to enrich teachers in ICT skills and provide them with accessible resources,” said S. Mars, CEO, Chennai.
