By Daiaphira Kharsati
SHILLONG: Lack of facilities for Persons with Disabilities has prevented many in the state from pursuing higher education and both the state and the Centre have done little to address the problems.
Bertina Lyngdoh, who is the first visually challenged person from the state to get Master’s degree (in English) from North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), is an example.
Lyngdoh had been trying to enroll for PhD for over three years. But the apathy of the university and the government has compelled the 27-year-old teacher to give up on her “dream”.
“I have stopped trying. I trusted NEHU to take all the responsibility. The head of the English department had forwarded a letter (to the university authorities) but I don’t think there was any response,” she told The Shillong Times.
She, however, stated that she knew that the task was daunting but a determined Lyngdoh said, “I want to go for PhD and don’t want to stop at Master’s.”
Lyngdoh said she has other friends who are facing the same plight and some of them have even dropped out of graduation but she was determined to pursue her studies despite financial crisis.
“I did not want to give up and God knows it, He helped me sail through,” she added.
She was informed that the university does not have special facilities like special library, Braille press and others.
Lyngdoh said she received help from people that she was able to get through the examinations. “I asked somebody to read it for me and I noted down points and that is how I elaborated my answers,” she added.
None of the city colleges and NEHU has Braille facilities, which is available only at Jyoti Sroat School, an inclusive teaching centre run by Bethany Society.
Meanwhile, speaking over the phone, head of the English department at NEHU, Sukalpa Bhattacharjee, said she had written to the university authorities about providing amenities to disabled students.
In the letter, she had pointed out that IITs and other central universities have provisions for the visually impaired. “Why NEHU as a central university and many other central universities do not care for the disabled,” she said.
After she took over as head of the department in 2015, she had written to the university about the absence of facilities for the disabled.
“It (providing amenities) was duly passed in the Academic Council in October 2015 but till date nothing has been done,” she said, adding that as an institution, it should care for the disabled.
Bhattacharjee observed that NEHU, being a central university should have already had facilities for differently-abled students.
She informed that the English department was the first to have a blind student and she asserted that with the government granting rights to the disabled, the central university should have implemented it.
The central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made several promises for ‘divyangs’, or the differently-abled, but the ground reality remains different.
For a visually challenged PhD scholar, facilities like Braille Library are necessary.
Bhattacharjee said up to MA, Lyngdoh was taken special care of by the faculty but at the PhD level, the university has to implement Braille facilities so that the blind student can carry on the research.
“After Bertina’s admission, we had managed a scribe. We don’t have any amenities for the blind to do PhD. The department took extra care that is why we managed with a scribe. At PhD level, she has to write her own idea for which she needs Braille and she needs a Braille library,” she added.
Bhattacharjee has encouraged Lyngdoh to go ahead with her PhD at English and Foreign Languages University that has Braille facilities.