President Droupadi Murmu, on Saturday, stressed the need for the maximum use of technology in order to remove language-related barriers in education and make education more accessible to children with disabilities.

She said the National Education Policy 2020 also underlined the importance of enabling arrangements for providing equal opportunities for quality education to children with disabilities.

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She was happy to note that the conversion of NCERT textbooks for classes I to VI into Indian Sign Language for hearing-impaired children has been completed. It was an important initiative to include hearing-impaired students in the mainstream education process.

The president was presenting the National Awards for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities for 2021 and 2022 in New Delhi on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

President Murmu said that according to an estimate by the United Nations, more than one billion people in the world were persons with disabilities. It meant almost every eighth person in the world has a disability in some form or the other.

More than two per cent of the people in India were people with disabilities.  Therefore, it became the responsibility of everyone to ensure that people with disabilities could lead a dignified life independently. ”It is also our duty to ensure that they get a good education, stay safe in their homes and society, have the freedom to choose their career and have equal employment opportunities,” she added.

The president said that in Indian culture and tradition, disability has never been considered a hindrance in acquiring knowledge and achieving excellence. Often, it has been seen that ”Divyangjan” were gifted with divine qualities.

Education, she emphasised, was the key to the empowerment of every individual, including people with disabilities.

Murmu said the government was taking several steps for the empowerment of ”Divyangjan”. She said that, according to her, inculcating self-confidence in ”Divyangjan” was very important to empower them. People with disabilities have talents and abilities just like normal people, and sometimes more than them. To make them self-reliant, it was only necessary to instil in them self-confidence.