Hyderabad: Devnar School for Blinds grabs International recognition

HYDERABAD:  Hyderabad based Devnar School for the Blind achieved International admiration as delegates from Sri Lanka is set to visit the school in order to learn its teaching methodology.

“The neighbouring country’s Social Empowerment and Welfare minister SB Dissanayake and his team will be visiting the school to study the teaching methods, on June 24, which coincides with silver jubilee celebrations of the school,” said founder of Devnar School for the Blind Dr A Saibaba Goud.

“I conducted workshops in Colombo last year for teaching staff of blind schools and it was during that trip I met the Social Empowerment minister,” said the founder.

Apart from Braille papers, the school uses several other creative teaching techniques which include include audio tapes, software which convert text into audio tapes after scanning text books, machines which read texts fed to computers and prints it in braille form, which enlarges the font size on screens helping partially blind students.

Meanwhile, according to the founder it wasn’t so easy to setup the techniques and that it incorporated over a time period of 25-years of establishing the school. “I met Dissanayake and said if they come to our school, they will get to know what we do. We sent a formal letter and they accepted it. Agenda of the visit is to study techniques here,” he said.

An 18-year-old visually challenged student from Sri Lanka stayed at the Devnar School to learn computer software last year.

Earlier, teams from China, Somalia, United Kingdom visited the school to study the teaching methods. Dr Saibaba said such methods are not followed in any school for visually challenged students throughout the country. With the amazing technique3s students can book train tickets by themselves through IRCTC website.