About us

INTRODUCTION

Disability has come to be defined as an existing difficulty in performing one or more activities, which in accordance with the subject’s age, sex and normative social role are generally accepted as essential basic components of daily living. It may be congenital. Or, it could be acquired one - through infections, traumatic causes. Disability is an issue that has medical implications, and also carries social overtones. What is more disturbing is that every tenth person, in the world is supposed to be inflicted with one or the other kind of physical disability. The Indian scenario is equally grim. As per the Census 2011, in India, out of the 121 Cr population, about 2.68 Cr persons are ‘disabled’ which is 2.21% of the total population. The dominating feature in case of people with special needs has always been their isolation and exclusion. From this was born the idea of normalisation and integration. The basic idea of normalisation was that disabled persons have a right to the normal social environment.

In the initial phase, the approach was more individualistic. The thrust was that the disabled person should receive training, technical aids and different support & services to increase his or her capacity to deal with various tasks and challenges in life. Despite all the training and services, disabled persons continued to face obstacles preventing them from participating in day-to-day life activities. What is the use of being able to manoeuvre a wheelchair perfectly, if the physical environment does not allow you to go to the places you want to go? What is the use of learning to read Braille, if nothing or very little of what you want to read is available in Braille?

The need for a more comprehensive policy was thus increasingly articulated. What was needed is an equal environment. Equalising opportunities for the persons with disabilities signify the removal of obstacles. It is the responsibility of the government, to ensure that this is done. In an era where ‘inclusive development’ is being emphasised as the right path towards sustainable development, focussed initiatives for the welfare of disabled persons are essential.

In tune with this, the concept of inclusive education has come to the fore. By inclusive education is meant that the children/young adults with special needs are never taken out of the regular classroom, rather they are provided all support services within the regular classroom as also within the campus itself. The University Grants Commission (UGC), the regulating body of colleges and universities in India has chalked out a comprehensive plan to implement and execute various measures that would make the environment more acceptable and accessible to students with special needs.

In its letter dated 11 June 2019, The UGC instructed the Universities/Colleges to form an Internal Committee for the Students with Disabilities and clearly spelt out the actions to be taken to create a disabled-friendly environment.

OBJECTIVES

The wider objectives of such a committee would be to:

• Provide guidance and counselling to differently-abled students;
• Create awareness about the needs of differently-abled persons, and other general issues concerning their learning;
• Remove architectural barriers and make special arrangements to facilitate the mobility and independent functioning of students with special needs;
• Provide special devices that will augment the learning experiences of differently-abled students;
• Monitor the implementation of all existing and future legislation and policies, pertaining to differently-abled students;
• Conduct awareness programmes for teachers of the institution about the approaches to teaching, evaluation procedures etc, which they should address in the case of differently-abled students

The UGC letter issued in June 2019 laid down the action-plan for fulfilling these goals:

PRESENT WORKING MEMBERS OF THE UNIT (2017 ONWARDS)

• Adoption and implementation of harmonized guidelines and space standards for barrier free built environment for persons with disability to make the existing buildings barrier free and accessible
• To form an Internal Committee comprising teachers, staff, students and parents for taking care of day to day needs of differently-abled persons as well as for implementation of the schemes existing and to be devised in future
• To report the proper functioning of Equal Opportunity Cell in the Colleges, Universities and other higher educational institutions

Facilities for Differently Abled Students

The college provides special facilities for the differently-abled students and persons, with opportunities to acquire quality education and to bring them into the mainstream of the society. The college has a social responsibility and perception that differently-abled students should be respected and treated as a normal human being.

EFFORTS & INITIATIVES

ADMISSION

• Students (having 40% or more of disability as per the medical certificate given by District Medical Board of Govt. Health Department) have been admitted subject to the fulfilment of minimum marks. They have 3% reservation as per government norms.
• In practice all PH candidates having 40% or more of disability are getting offer of direct admission in the General course and for Honours course as per the university norms.
• List of physically disabled students admitted during the last five years are given in Annexure –IA and IB.

ADMISSION FEES

• Nominal admission fee for differently-abled students.
• Tuition fee, CU Registration fee and Examination fee are also waived for these students.

FREE STUDENTSHIP, SCHOLARSHIPS AND INSTALMENT FACILITIES

• Differently-abled students are assisted with free studentships, scholarships and instalment facilities.
• List of physically disabled students assisted with free studentships, scholarships and instalment facilities during the last five years are given in Annexure II

INFRASTRUCTURAL FACILITIES

• WHEELCHAIR FACILITIES: Wheelchair facility is available at main campus when required.
• ELEVATORS: College elevators (in the Main campus, Asutosh College Training Centre “ACTC”, Centenary Building, and Humanities block) which are not meant for use by students, are fully accessible PH students.

The details of the elevators are given below:

SPECIAL SEATING ARRANGEMENT

Special chairs and tools are made available, on a need basis, in the classrooms and laboratories for PH students

RAMPS

• There is a ramp in the Annexe Building and Humanities block for the smooth entry of the physically challenged students. The College is planning to prepare ramp in the Main Building also
• The main entrances and exits are clearly identifiable and easily accessible and it can accommodate wheelchair users.
• Temporary ramp is available in centenary building.

PATHWAYS AND SIGNPOSTS

The College has tactile path, lights, display boards, and signposts to enable students to access their area of necessity with ease.

WASH ROOMS AND REST ROOMS:

• Wash rooms are disable friendly - wash rooms are designed in such a way that PH students can easily get in and out of it.
• In the newly constructed buildings separate toilets are available for people with disabilities. They are clearly identifiable and accessible

ACADEMIC SUPPORT

BRAILLE FACILTIES

The College Library, for helping the Visually Challenged “VC” students, procures Braille enabled books based on the requirement set forwarded by such student.

The Braille corner at reading library contains more than 200 volumes of Braille books covering different subjects and nearly 50 audio books (DVD) are available in the said corner.

Besides, numerous audio books are accessible under NLIST.

In the library of the ANNEXE Building, the students have been provided with comprising of books of History, Philosophy, and Literature etc. The college has a plan to extend this facility to the VC students of other departments in the near future.

SCRIBES FOR EXAMINATION

During exams some students feel difficulty to take the examination and need scribes with them. The college provides or allows the students to take the help of scribes in the examination.
As per the Government of India, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) Office Memorandum F. No. 34-02/2015-DO-UI dated 29th August 2018, the following guidelines are to be strictly followed :

• The blind student may select the scribe
• The scribe need not have a qualification lower than that of the student, provided that the scribe should not have the qualification (with the same optional and languages) pertaining to the examinations, which the student is writing (for ex: a student who has completed B.A. or M.A. can be a scribe for the student who is taking B. Sc. Examinations)
• A physically disabled / blind / hearing impaired candidate and the scribes for such a candidate shall be allowed an extra time of 20 minutes per hour.
• As the hearing impaired students are having language problems, possibilities of grammar mistakes, mistakes in building the sentences are there. Hence, the answer papers shall be identified separately and evaluated with additional care.

MEDICAL SUPPORT

A medical room is available with on duty nurse for any medical support as and when required.

MENTAL SUPPORT

A psychotherapy unit is available to provide mental support to the students with disabilities when required. The students can approach the Internal Committee members as also the college administration with any issue as and when required. There is a drop box at the ground floor of the main building, where they can file any grievance which would be suitably addressed by the college authority

FUTURE PLANS

Although Asutosh College has already implemented a number of measures to create an inclusive environment, we are constantly striving to better ourselves and create a barrier-free learning set-up. The pandemic has severely hampered the execution of several proposed schemes, but with the return of normalcy we look forward to a successful implementation of our plans. Our future plans would include:

• Introduce job-oriented courses specially tailor-made for disabled students
• Sensitization workshops for faculty members and students
• Further revamp of the existing infrastructure