News

Volume 4 Issue 4 - February 15, 2006

C.B.S.E. exams to be disabled-friendly this year: Chairman

D.N.I.S. News Network – In a slew of announcements for making school exams disabled-friendly, the Central Board of Secondary Education (C.B.S.E.) has announced several new measures including flat one-hour additional time and separate assessment procedures.

Speaking at the annual press conference ahead of the board exams, Dr. Ashok Ganguly said that vision impaired candidates will be given alternative questions, an additional time of one hour. In addition to this, provision for special examination centres and comfortable seating arrangements have been ensured for them.

“The disabled students appearing for class 10 and social sciences will be given alternative questions, said the Chairman, while adding that this facility will also be extended for students of class 12 who are appearing for history, geography and economics.

Blind candidates appearing from Delhi will have the facility of using computers or typewriters during the examination. The students can also take the services of writers during the examination, he added.

A total of 955 disabled students for class 10 and 937 for class 12 will be sitting in the board exams this year. In case of visually impaired students, teachers from the same schools will be appointed as invigilators at the examination centres. But these teachers will be those who teach subjects other than that in which the candidate is being examined.

The board has made arrangement of six special examination centres for the visually challenged candidates. The seating arrangement has been planned so as to accommodate all disabled students on the ground floor. A column has been included for indicating the disability of the candidates, as the answer sheets of these students will also be evaluated separately.

Separate question papers printed with larger fonts would be provided for the mathematics and science papers in the Class 10 examinations for disabled candidates and their answer scripts would be sent in separate covers for evaluation.