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More than half of seats reserved for students with disabilities in I.I.T.s go vacant!

D.N.I.S. News Network, India: More than half the seats reserved for students with disabilities in the 15 prestigious and highly coveted Indian Institutes of Technology (I.I.T.s) across the country will go vacant. While this shows how abysmal the education scenario is in the country for students with disabilities, what is even more disturbing is the indifferent attitude of the authorities concerned.

Of the 279 seats reserved for students with disabilities, only 124 have qualified for the preparatory course this year. This clearly confirms what most of the disability sector has been saying for a long time: the percentage of students who make it through high school to good colleges and universities is as good as negligible!

Chairman of the Joint Entrance Examination (J.E.E.) said that they had written to C.C.P.D. informing that they will allot the vacant reserved seats to other categories and have received no objection from them. A newspaper report quoted T.D. Dhariyal, Deputy Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities saying “there was no point in keeping the seats vacant”.