Union Education Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has approved the release of the guidelines for the Development of e-Content for Children with Disabilities.
A comprehensive initiative, PM e-VIDYA was launched on 17th May 2020, with an aim to unify all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education. The programme interalia envisages development of special e-content for the Divyang (Children with Disabilities-CwDs).
In pursuance of this vision, the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education had constituted a Committee of experts, for recommending guidelines for developing e-content for these children.
For the first time, an attempt was made to prepare guidelines for CwD also referred to as Children with Special Needs (CWSN) children so that the goal of inclusive education is fulfilled. The Committee submitted a report titled “Guidelines for the Development of e-Content for Children with Disabilities” comprising of eleven Sections and two Appendices. This report was shared, presented, discussed and accepted by the MoE.
The salient highlights of the e- content guidelines in the report are:
The Committee has also recommended that in a phased manner textbooks may be adapted into Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADTs). The content of ADTs should be provided in multiple formats (text, audio, video, sign language etc) with turn-on and turn-off features. Further, ADTs should provide flexibility to CwDs to respond to its content/exercises in multiple ways. The detailed guidelines for developing ADTs along with existing international and national experience, in the development of prototypes including the recent NCERT’s experience: Barkha:A Reading Series for All (in print and digital forms), Accessible Textbooks for All and UNICEF’s “Accessible Digital Textbooks using Universal Design for Learning ( for Learners with and without Disabilities ) have been presented in Section 5 of the report.
These guidelines will initiate the creation of high quality content for digital education toChildrenwith Special needs. They are dynamic by nature, to be improved based on experience and advent of better technology.
click here for accessing the guidelines: JharkhandStateNews