Blind School In Odisha’s Berhampur To Turn Smart Under 5T Initiative

Berhampur: The Red Cross School for the Blind at Berhampur city in Odisha’s Ganjam district is all set to turn smart soon and impart education to visually impaired students with the help of computer Braille, officials said.

The school will undergo a total transformation under the 5T initiative of the state government. Steps are being taken for the introduction of computer Braille at the school shortly for the benefit of students.

“The move to introduce computer braille will be of immense help to more than 100 visually handicapped students, including girls,” said District Social Security Officer (DSSO) of Ganjam, Kalyani Devi.

Computer Braille is an adaptation of braille for the precise representation of computer-related materials such as programs, program lines, computer commands, and filenames. A computer Braille display operates by raising and lowering different combinations of pins electronically to produce in Braille what appears on your computer screen.

Run by the Red Cross, the school was inaugurated in 1974 by the then President V V Giri, who hailed from Berhampur, The school, which imparts education to students from Class VI to Class X, also offers hostel facilities.

While the students are now being imparted education through traditional Braille, the district education and social security authorities have decided to include the school under the 5T initiative. A proposal forwarded by the district education officer (DEO) in this regard has been approved by the state government, the official said.

Though smart classrooms, e-libraries, modern laboratories and other facilities are now available in the schools which are being transformed under the 5T programme, the School for the Blind would be modernised in a different manner.

Apart from providing Braille-based computer labs and audio systems, arrangements will be made to impart education with the help of state-of-the-art technologies, Kalyani Devi said.

Stating at a school for the blind at Begusarai in Bihar was transformed into a smart school in 2019, she said the school at Berhampur will be modernised in a similar pattern.

Of the 628 high schools in Ganjam district, 133 schools were transformed in the first phase and 233 in the second phase. The School for the Blind is among the 107 schools to be transformed under the 5T initiative in the third phase.