EXPLORING THE CHALLENGES FACED BY VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS AND TEACHERS IN CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES AT MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL

Abstract

According to the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023, the teaching-learning process must be made interesting and exciting for both students and teachers to achieve learning standards. A case study design was adopted to explore the challenges faced by the visually impaired students and their teachers in the process of teaching-learning and continuous assessments of various school subjects. One government-sponsored Bengali-medium special school located in Kolkata, West Bengal, was selected through purposive sampling. 11 visually impaired students from class VIII and their 5 teachers participated in the study. For collecting data from students and teachers, focus group discussion (FGD) and an interview schedule were employed, respectively. For analyzing the qualitative data using thematic analysis, QDA Miner Lite software was used. Findings revealed that visually impaired students did not get adequate teaching-learning facilities in the classroom and appropriate writing facilities in the examinations as per their needs. Further, teachers highlighted the problems related to teaching learning materials, lack of scribes, lack of assistive technology devices, and learning management systems. Outcomes of this study may therefore guide various stakeholders to overcome the problems faced by visually impaired students and their teachers in the classroom.