Special children in four state centres set to get IT education

The centres that have been selected are Mahant Gurbanta Das School for Deaf and Dumb in Bathinda,DAV Red Cross School for Special Children in Amritsar,Vista Red Cross Mentally Challenged Children Special School in Moga and Red Cross School for Deaf in Jalandhar.

Besides an array of specially designed softwares,each centre will get 10 computers,one server and a printer. “The computers,servers and printers have already reached the centres. These will become functional in few days after the installation of the software,” said Sandeep Kumar,Customer Support Engineer of Wipro,which is executing the project.

Maninder Kaur,the principal of Mahant Gurbanta Das School for Deaf and Dumb said: “The installation is complete in our centre. And classes are likely to start in next few days.”

These softwares include features like magnifiers,typing tutors,word prediction,audio translation of scanned documents,besides reading and writing tools,color coded keyboards and Braille printers.

“Providing IT education to the special children can go a long way in changing their lives for the better,They can pursue higher studies and become self-reliant,” said Shilpi Kapoor,Managing Director of Barrier Break Technologies,which is supplying the softwares.

“Apart from providing basic computer training,we will also want that after becoming proficient,these children should work in call centres and medical transcriptions,” said ERNET Director B B Tiwari.

Saying that the project was being run in several similar schools across India,Tiwari added that ERNET plans to cover 100 such schools. “We are in the second leg of the project and various schools from different states have been chosen for the purpose,” Tiwari said.

The educators and engineers,who will teach these children,are being trained by Balaji Janardhanan — who had worked as the head of the department in Computerised Braille Press at the Mumbai-based Helen Keller Institute for Deaf and Deafblind.

Balaji,who is the technical consultant to Wipro,still remains associated with the Helen Keller institute as a Honorary Technical Consultant after having worked there for 10 years.