Her bones have left her confined to the bed, but that has not stopped Neha K. from dreaming big.
On Thursday, Neha became one of the students eligible for the Upper Secondary Scholarship (USS) of the General Education Department. This is the first time that a differently abled student receiving home-based education has won the scholarship. Neha who took admission to class 8 at Government Higher Secondary School, Kuttamath, Cheruvathur, Kasaragod, this year after completing her primary education from AUPS, Kovval, Cheruvathur, suffers from osteopetrosis, which causes bones to become dense and fracture.
Teachers’ help
She attended school only till class 2. For the past three years, a resource teacher of the Samagra Shiksha Kerala – first Lekha, and now Praseeda P.V. – has been going to Neha’s home once a week to help her study.
Neha, daughter of ex-serviceman Prakashan P.V., and schoolteacher Deepa K., also suffers from lack of vision owing to her condition. She has now picked up Braille and can read and write in Malayalam and English. For the USS exam, Neha availed herself of the services of a scribe.
Ms. Deepa, a teacher at a Government Welfare UPS, Cheruvathur, says Neha has only 3% vision, so they read out aloud to her and make recordings for her to listen. Ms. Praseeda then brings her the necessary resource material for studying.
Ms. Praseeda says Neha is not only keen to learn new things, she is also quick to grasp them. When books became her world, she picked up words and usages quickly and was soon expressing her thoughts on paper. A collection of her poems was brought out by the Cheruvathur block resource centre of the Samagra Shiksha under the title Snehamritham.
Besides friends, Neha’s teachers too were of great help and encouragement, says Ms. Praseeda. When she was having a hard time learning Hindi, her teacher as part of the Surili Hindi programme took along a few students and recreated the class environment in Neha’s house. Soon, she picked up the language.
Love for Victers
In her new school too, she is becoming familiar with her teachers and students through various activities to be taken up as part of the online classes on Victers. Neha who has been deprived of classroom teaching loves hearing the Victers classes, says Ms. Praseeda.
Minister for General Education C. Ravindranath spoke to Neha over phone and congratulated her. In a Facebook post, the Minister promised her all support in her academic endeavours.
