RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Gov­ern­ment (UNC) pre­pares to dis­trib­ute lap­tops to stu­dents across the coun­try from Sep­tem­ber, ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Ken­neth Sur­ratt, is call­ing for ex­pand­ed ac­cess to dig­i­tal learn­ing tools in schools.

Suratt, an ad­vo­cate for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and a long-time leader in the blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired com­mu­ni­ty, said spe­cial pro­vi­sions should be made for stu­dents with vi­su­al im­pair­ments.

In a let­ter ad­dressed to Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials over the week­end, Suratt re­quest­ed that de­vices pro­vid­ed to blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired stu­dents in­clude key as­sis­tive tech­nolo­gies to sup­port their learn­ing needs.

Suratt em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of in­clud­ing screen read­er soft­ware such as NV­DA or JAWS, screen mag­ni­fi­ca­tion tools, and sup­port for re­fre­sh­able Braille dis­plays.

He said these fea­tures are es­sen­tial for blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired stu­dents to ac­cess dig­i­tal con­tent on the same terms as their able-bod­ied class­mates.

Ac­cord­ing to Suratt, the re­fre­sh­able Braille dis­play is a crit­i­cal tool that must be con­nect­ed to the lap­top via USB or Blue­tooth.

“With­out this sup­port, blind stu­dents may strug­gle to keep up with their aca­d­e­m­ic re­quire­ments,” he ex­plained.

Suratt’s re­quest comes amid con­cerns about eq­ui­table ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties.

Suratt de­scribed the lap­top dis­tri­b­u­tion plan by the Gov­ern­ment as a chance to pro­mote in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion and en­sure that no stu­dent is ex­clud­ed based on dis­abil­i­ty.

T&T does not cur­rent­ly have com­pre­hen­sive, up­dat­ed na­tion­al da­ta on the num­ber of blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired chil­dren in the school sys­tem.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and lo­cal dis­abil­i­ty rights or­gan­i­sa­tions have re­peat­ed­ly high­light­ed the need for bet­ter da­ta col­lec­tion and stronger in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion poli­cies.

Dur­ing last week’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar again re­it­er­at­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to move ahead with the lap­top dis­tri­b­u­tion plan for stu­dents go­ing in­to Form One from Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, she said the dis­tri­b­u­tion of dig­i­tal de­vices such as lap­tops and tablets will not be de­ter­mined via means tests.

“I found the means test to be very sub­jec­tive. I be­lieve every child is en­ti­tled to a lap­top un­less the par­ents don’t want it,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

“This is the age of tech­nol­o­gy. This is the age of the com­put­er. Our chil­dren have been left in the dump for ten or nine years when they killed that pro­gramme.”

The Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that there had been some who were crit­i­cis­ing the pro­gramme but said those peo­ple do not have to par­tic­i­pate in it.

The rein­tro­duc­tion of the lap­top dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gramme was one of the UNC’s many cam­paign promis­es ahead of the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.