The future of 43 speech and hearing-impaired students of the Technical Training Centre for Deaf (TTCD), hangs in balance as they are yet to receive their hall tickets for the second-year exam, scheduled from Friday. The students told TNIE that they have been out of the education system since March 2020, and reopening of colleges has not extended to them in actuality. There is a lot stacked against the students, who are trying to make sense of why they have been abandoned by the system. They spoke to TNIE through a sign interpreter and said they have been unable to grasp conversations about their examination, for want of an interpreter.
In August, they were asked to pay the fee for the second-year examination scheduled in November, however, they did not receive their hall tickets and held a protest on November 29. Parents who approached the college administration were told that the teacher who had collected the fee (Rs 350 per student), had absconded with the money.
The students were also told that their pass certificates for the first year were missing. These students were shifted out of their institute to Ghousia Industrial & Engineering Trust in 2019, because of the Shivajinagar Metro construction work. Until the end of January, the students visited college but there was no lecturer to teach them, they said.
The larger problem is for the repeaters, who have not enrolled for the examination on the government website, said a source close to the students. Even if they write their second-year exam, they still have to clear their pending exams before they can graduate, and the dates are not confirmed yet. Neither is there any clarity from the department, and their prospects appear bleak, said another source.
Their only source of help is local citizens, who got together for four days and took it on themselves to coach the students. One of them is 81-year-old retired engineer Balasubramaiah, who said the students were blank when he began coaching them, after a long break from studies. Even model papers were difficult to come by. Students themselves are unsure how well they can perform in the examination.
Balakrishna, TTCD assistant director, said that after writing to the Centre, arrangements were made for fresh candidates to write the examination, while repeaters are yet to pay their fees to register. However, there are demands to let the repeaters write the examination, which are held across the country.
