Overseas visit in store for 100 disabled university students
DU will also give them free laptops with necessary software
At a programme hosted by Delhi University’s equal opportunity cell (EOC), vice chancellor Dinesh Singh on Tuesday announced that 100 disabled students will be sent abroad on a visit in the next semester and will also be given free laptops.
“We are (already) late in distributing laptops to the students with disability. They have been brought and will be given soon. The laptops include all required softwares,” said Dinesh Singh, at an event organised in collaboration with an NGO AADI.
According to Bipin Tiwari, officer on special duty of EOC, the laptops will be distributed to all regular students of DU with disabilities. “By the end of December or first week of January, the free of cost laptops will be given to the students,” he said.
Singh also said despite sending repeated reminders to colleges for admitting students with disabilities, several of them are not following it. “It is in the university guidelines for colleges to admit students with disabilities. I need to find out some way to see that the colleges follow these guidelines,” added Singh.
Talking about a divided DU, he urged that everyone should be united. “We keep thinking how to unite the entire DU. We need to help others so that they help us. We will keep trying,” he said.
In the last semester, varsity increased the hostel reservation for disabled students from three per cent to five per cent. Even the DU’s educational trip Gyanodaya included disabled students.
Special guest Stuti Kackar, department of disability affairs’ secretary, said new ideas should emerge in universities. “It is seen that whenever repressive regimes come, the first thing they do is to cut off the intellectual thought. The VC, however, is supporting such an initiative and the thought of inclusiveness,” she said.
