NIOS to Start Sign Language Exams for Hearing Impaired Students

National Institute of Open Schooling or NIOS is planning to introduce sign language exams for hearing-impaired students. CB Sharma, Chairman, NIOS confirmed the development and said that the country has a come long way since the time when schools for visually impaired, hearing impaired and autistic children were operated in isolation. Even though the country has moved to inclusive education, it is still important to integrate differently abled with society.

After the amendments made in the Disability Act two years ago, he along with his team decided to make provisions for differently abled students who were enrolled with NOIS. They formed a committee with the mothers of disabled children. In the same year, changes were also made in the rules of autistic children and hearing-impaired students

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He further informed that in order to make it easier for students, the institute has hired sign language experts in subjects including Science, Hindi, Home Science, Social Science, Data Entry and others. These experts record lessons for hearing-impaired students The main aim of this initiative is to make education accessible to all the students and to evaluate in which medium they are most comfortable in.

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The board will make a bank of questions in sign language and will send the same to the network of 21 regional centres across the country. However, the board is currently facing a shortage of sign language experts but they have been promised by HRD Ministry that these lectures will be broadcasted on Swayam Prabha Channel so it reaches out to the differently abled students across the country.