[Blindmath] Is a Diploma in IT accessible enough for a blind student?

[John G Heim]

To answer your question directly, yes, it certainly is possible for 
blind students to complete IT courses.  In fact, in the United States, 
most blind IT students attend regular universities or tech schools and 
take the same classes as sighted students. Most states that once had 
specialized IT programs for blind students have phased them out. But 
that's in the United States. Conditions in Pakistan might dictate a 
different strategy for you.


In the United States, colleges, universities, and tech schools that 
receive funding from the federal government (which is almost all of 
them) are required to make all instructional material accessible to 
blind students. I work for the University of Wisconsin and we have an 
entire department dedicated to making sure disabled students have equal 
access to all instructional materials. That is a much better approach 
but it took many years to get to that point.


The main problem with the specialized programs, besides being expensive, 
was that they weren't as rigorous as the mainstream programs. It was 
difficult for a small program for blind students to provide instruction 
that was ut to the standards set at most colleges and tech schools. So 
besides spending a lot of money per student, they weren't getting 
training as good as they could get at a regular school. I attended the 
program for blind students here in Wisconsin after I got my degree from 
the University of Wisconsin and I found the specialized program trivial. 
One of the instructors said I should be teaching the course, not taking it.

Well, I've digressed a bit. However, I think all this is relevant to 
your original question as to whether blind students can complete IT 
classes. You might consider joining the email lists for blind IT 
professionals. Two that I subscribe to are talk at iavit.org and 
blind-sysadmins at lists.hodgsonfamily.org. Both of those lists have 
subscribers from around the world.





On 10/31/2016 07:07 AM, Saaqib Mahmuud via Blindmath wrote:
>
> Hello to the Blind Math community!
>
> My name is Saaqib Mahmood; I'm a visually impaired person from Abbottabad, Pakistan, with an MPhil in Mathematics and working as a mathematics lecturer at a mainstream college run by the local provincial government.
>
> The Pakistan Association of the Blind (PAB) is looking forward to starting a one-year Diploma in Information Technology (DIT) program for the blind students at their national Resource and Training Center (RTC) in Karachi.
>
> This DIT program, administered by the Sindh Board of Technical Education (SBTE), includes courses such as programming in C, VB.Net, and JAVA; web page designing and creation in HTML and other allied tools; and similar other high-tech courses in the field of computer science and information technology.
>
> I would be happy to send you the complete course outline.
>
> Is there any precedent of blind people taking and successfully completing such courses with the help of screen reading software such as JAWS and NVDA?
>
> If so, then can you put me in touch with any individual or organisation who can provide us technical support as and when we need?
> Regards.
>
> Yours Faithfully,
> Saaqib Mahmood,Lecturer in Mathematics,
> Government Postgraduate College (GPGC) No. 1,
> Abbottabad, PAKISTANPhone: +92-334-541-7958 (mobile + WhatsApp + Skype + Viber)Email: saaqib1978 at yahoo.co.inSkype: saaqib.mahmood
>
>
>     
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-- 
--
John G. Heim; jheim at math.wisc.edu; sip://jheim@sip.linphone.org