Imagine being a visually-impaired person in Bangladesh and getting discriminated in every walk of life. Even getting a chance to study in Dhaka University, arguably the best university of your country, might not change the miseries. There is a section exclusively developed for sightless students which is gradually becoming obsolete because of the negligence of the authority. An extended part of the Dhaka University Central Library that was created in 2007 for the visually-impaired students of the institution, is not being of much help to these particular students these days. If the situation in the topmost institution is such, should we even have the slightest expectations from others to give more opportunities to those impaired pupils?
Robiul Islam, a visually impaired student currently studying international relations at DU, has talked about his agonies regarding the ‘Resource Center for the Visually Impaired Students’ of his institute. Since the centre is not well equipped with books having braille facilities and other equipment, he doesn’t even go there that much, the place that was meant for students like him.
Now there are a few number of braille books at the centre, and they all are expired. Still, the authority couldn’t care less about this matter by not taking a single step to replace the books with new readable ones.
However, Robiul goes there along with some students of his kind, to use computer facilities since these computers possess a software made for their special usage only. The problem is persistent in this regard too as there are a small number of computers at the centre. Even there is no qualified operator to help the students there. All these lead to serious damage to the visually impaired students’ academic results, as they have nearly nothing to be facilitated except for class lectures and their friends reading before exam nights.
Mohammad Sarower Hossen Khan, an assistant librarian of the Dhaka University Central Library and the person in-charge of the resource centre for the visually impaired, has echoed the words of Robiul.
Being sightless himself, he understands the problems of the visually impaired students. He stated that since the establishment of the resource centre, neither new books have been brought in, nor old books have been replaced. There is no notable budget to improve the resource centre as well, which is making it even difficult to run, let alone improve.
Being visually impaired is a matter of immense misery, which makes people helpless already. If the best educational institution of the country cannot provide them with proper facilities to grow themselves, they’ll feel let down and a burden to the society. It needs to be kept in mind that the university is a place to push people up, not let someone down and that it is imperative for the DU authorities to make a better environment for education for students like Robiul and others.
The writer is a third year BSS student at Dhaka University. He can be reached at- [email protected]
