Handicapped persons and the law: India

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Dyslexic students

From the archives of The Times of India 2010

‘No calculator for dyslexic student’

SC Says CBSE Knows Best

Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN

New Delhi: A class XII dyslexic student’s plea seeking to use a calculator for the March 22 mathematics paper did not yield the desired result in the Supreme Court on Friday.

Pranjay’s plea did not find favour with a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and C K Prasad. Not only he, but another 830 similarly challenged students appearing for their class X and XII boards will have to do without calculators.

In contrast, dyslexic students appearing in the ICSE class X and XII board would have the benefit of a calculator during the mathematics papers.

But, they need not despair or feel disadvantaged. For, CBSE counsel, senior advocate Bhaskar Gupta, told the Bench that the challenged students have been given four distinct concessions which should equip them to compete virtually on par with normal students.

The concessions are:

They can take a scribe with them to write the papers, though the person writing the papers would have to be studying in a class less than his They will be given an additional 60 minutes time for each paper The calculations need not be mandatorily worked out by the dyslexic student. Meaning thereby that the scribe can do it for him as the challenged student only tells him the process of working it out

All such students will be accommodated on the ground floor Appearing for Pranjay, who did well in his class X board under ICSE by scoring 92 in mathematics with the help of a calculator, senior advocate J L Gupta said there was a national policy for physically challenged which categorically says dyslexic students be allowed to use calculators in examinations.

The CBSE counsel said the national policy was of 2006 whereas the secondary board in 2009 had with the help of experts taken a decision to grant these four concessions to challenged students while categoricaly declining the aid of a calculator. This 2009 decision had never been challenged by any student.

But the Bench being satisfied with CBSE’s response declined to grant the benefit of use of calculator to Pranjay. “Once the CBSE thinks the permission to take help of a scribe and additional time of 60 minutes should offset the disadvantageous position of a dyslexic student, we cannot grant the benefit of use of calculator to a single student,” the Bench said refusing any interim relief.