BANGALORE: Facing complaints from parents and students on the dyslexia tag, the SSLC Board has recommended removing it from class X marks cards for children with specific learning disabilities (SLD).
The move has come following complaints from parents and students with SLD that they faced difficulties in getting admissions, after SSLC, due to the tag.
Until last year, the SSLC marks card indicated the disability a student had for the following categories - hearing impediment, visual impediment and dyslexia/spasticity.
Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) director D S Rajanna said, “Students have complained that they faced difficulties in admissions after SSLC. So we have recommended to the government that the tag be removed.” The matter was initially referred by the state government to the KSEEB, and the KSEEB has recommended the removal of the dyslexia tag, while retaining the ones for visual and hearing impaired students.
A final decision is expected to be taken in the coming week, so that it can be implemented this year, while printing marks cards for the just announced SSLC results.
Malleswaram Dyslexia Association president Prof K S Gopalan, who has been petitioning for greater sensitivity on the part of the SSLC Board, has welcomed the recommendation.
“This is a good move on the part of the government, and I hope it will be implemented this year itself.” ‘More to do’ However, Prof Gopalan pointed that the SSLC application forms were still insensitive to students’ disabilities.
Under the physical condition column in the application form, six options are provided - normal, blind, hearing impaired, physically challenged, dyslexia/spastic, and deaf and dumb.
“Dyslexic children and spastic children have two very different conditions.
Dyslexia is a learning disability, a neurological condition, whereas, spastic children have a muscular problem.
How can they club the two together?,” Gopalan asks.
He also pointed out that the assistance given to these two categories varied: during examinations, children with dyslexia get a person to read out questions, while spastic children have a scribe to write the answers for them. Prof Gopalan also pointed out that the board should use the term “visually impaired,” instead of blind, as it is considered offensive.
This was all the more confounding as the board used “hearing impaired” instead of deaf and “physically challenged” instead of lame, he argued.
yusuf@epmltd.com
