BANGALORE: Bangalore University (BU) will start Louie Braille Centre in its campus to help visually challenged students pursue higher education by transcribing textbooks into Braille format.
Announcing this on the 203rd birth anniversary celebrations of Louie Braille, organised by National Federation of the Blind on Wednesday, BU Vice-Chancellor Dr N Prabhudev said the course would start in one month’s time. “A unique software will decode from Braille to English when typed on computer keyboard. It will help the students while finding jobs. Rotary is donating the software for free of cost to BU,” he said. Further, Prabhudev added there were 40 million visually impaired and 150 partially visually impaired people across the world.
“Unfortunately, only 15 per cent of them utilise rehabilitation facilities,” he said. Gautham Agarwal, general secretary, National Federation of the Blind, said that 30,000 million visually challenged people were receiving education through Braille across 180 countries.