School for the blind lacks literature

By George Bita

The bell for lunch sounds to alert the learners that it is lunch time. However, some students are not bothered as they busily type away at their braille machines.

One of them, whose sight is impartially impaired, reads from a text book while the rest hurriedly translate the information into a format easily understood by blind persons.

This activity proceeds way into the lunch hour until the students have covered a sizeable part of the book. They then abandon the task and retreat to the dining hall to pick up their waiting food.

Whereas this is the order of the day at St. Francis Secondary School for the Blind, Madera in Soroti, this could appear peculiar to a visitor.

The institute, with a population of 85 blind students, lacks essential braille literature. Most of the books on the library shelves are not meant for disabled learners.

Mike Tibikoze, a learner, reveals that students have taken it upon themselves to generate their own copies of reading material.

“We simply pick up a book and use those who are not entirely blind to dictate as the others type into braille. It is the only way we can help ourselves under the circumstances,” Tibikoze says.

He argues that taking advantage of time outside lesson hours is the only way the students can get to make lots of their own literature. This innovation has enabled learners get their own easy-to-read copies of essential text books of history and English.

DIRE NEED FOR BOOKS

Silver Oonyu, the in-charge of the special needs ICT department, says almost 90% of the books at the school cannot be used by blind students.

“Whenever the Government supplies books to institutions, we are not forgotten but instead of providing us with special braille literature, we get ordinary text books,” Oonyu laments.

He observes that the state of affairs is not made any better by the expensive braille paper — a ream costs sh150,000.

“The Ministry of Education often supplies us with the reams, but quality issues usually arise. The type brought in is made by Picfare and somehow does not tally with the imported version,” he says.

He adds that the Perkins Braille machine used determines the print obtained with inferior paper giving rise to literature which cannot be easily deciphered by learners.

Francis Onyait, the school director of studies, says friends of Madera from the US recently donated a special computer printer.

“The Embozle printer has helped us a lot as we can now type examinations with ease. You feed it with ordinary literature which it translates and prints out in braille,” Onyait says.

He says they allow users from outside to use the equipment, including those from Community for the Blind based in Soroti.

“The only problem is that the Embozle can only be repaired in Kampala, which is costly. Whenever it develops a technical fault we have to ferry it to Ezuri Enabling Services based in the Kampala to have it put right,” Onyait explains.

Oonyu says the Job Access with Speech (JOS) software has come in handy to assist blind students use computers.

He says the program enables the disabled learners to ‘see’ with a sense of touch and hearing what comes out of the system speakers.

“Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been simplified by the software as the computers are made to ‘talk’ to the learners. In the meantime, even if we lack braille literature, the students can search for material from the internet,” Oonyu says.

He adds that installing the software is costly — almost sh17m and it has to be updated with time.

“Just having it uploaded on my personal laptop from Freedom Scientific outlet made me part with sh3m. That is how costly the software is, yet it is vital for better teaching in a contemporary setting,” Oonyu argues.

Onyait is optimistic that with advancements in technology like JOS, learning for the blind children would be made much simpler. In the meantime, as the hi-tech advancement is yet to be fully realised, the dire need for literature still haunts the Soroti School for the blind.