Indian president stresses maximizing use of technology to make education more accessible to disabled children
New Delhi:
President Drupadi Murmu on Saturday emphasized the need to maximize the use of technology to remove language-related barriers in education and make education more accessible to children with disabilities. Here, on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, she presents the 2021 and 2022 National Disability Empowerment Awards.
Addressing the meeting, the President said that according to United Nations estimates, more than 1 billion people in the world are disabled. This means that almost one in eight people in the world suffers from some form of disability. More than 2% of India’s population is disabled. Ensuring that persons with disabilities are able to live independently and with dignity becomes the responsibility of all.
“We also have a responsibility to ensure they receive a good education, remain safe at home and in society, have freedom to choose their profession and equal opportunity in employment,” she said.
The President said that in Indian culture and tradition, disability has never been seen as a barrier to knowledge and excellence.
“Many times, we have seen divyangjans endowed with divine qualities. The examples of our divyang brothers and sisters who, through unrelenting courage, talent and determination, have achieved impressive achievements in many fields are too numerous to list. If any With enough opportunities and the right environment, they can excel in various fields,” she said.
Education, she said, is key to empowering everyone, including people with disabilities.
“We should maximize the use of technology to remove language-related barriers in education and make education more accessible to children with disabilities,” she said.
She said she was pleased to note that NCERT grades 1 to 6 textbooks had been converted to Indian Sign Language for hearing-impaired children. She said the inclusion of hearing-impaired students in the mainstream education process was an important step. The president said the government was taking several steps to empower Divyangjan. Instilling self-confidence in divyangjan is important to empowering them, she said. “Disabled people are as gifted and capable as normal people, sometimes even more than they are. To make them self-reliant, it just needs to instill self-confidence in them,” she said.
She appealed to all walks of life to inspire Divyangjan to be self-reliant and move forward in life. She said that when divyang people join the mainstream and make effective contributions, the country will move forward at a faster pace on the road of development.
The Disability Empowerment Division (Divyangjan) of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment annually presents the National Disability Empowerment Award to individuals, institutions, organisations, states/territories etc. in recognition of their outstanding achievements and work in empowering persons with disabilities. The National Selection Committee considered the applications shortlisted by the Screening Committee at its meeting on November 2 and recommended 25 winners for 2021 and 29 winners for 2022.
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