University Students in Himachal Pradesh to get Free Education

At the University level, Himachal Pradesh would be the first state in the country to provide absolute free education to the specially-abled students. The Himachal High Court has also ordered the state government to increase the amount of scholarship for the students as well.

The Himachal High Court has earlier given order to the state government to enact the law which enables any specially-abled children to get free education who are within 18 years of age. The enactment of this has to be done by the government within a time span of six months.

It all began from the letter written by Ajai Srivastava of Umang Foundation, who is an activist fighting for the disability rights in a public welfare trust. Judgment was passed by Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Tarlok Sigh Chauhan in the Himachal High Court in accordance with the letter submitted by Srivastava.

Umang Foundation was awarded a hefty sum of Rs. 1 Lakh by the High court for carrying out welfare activities of the disabled students. The universities in Solan and Palampur have been instructed to make the necessary changes and infrastructural changes in their academic structure and prospectus, so that they can provide free education to the disabled students. Within the time frame of six months, the HP State Public Service Commission and HP Subordinate Service Selection Board has also been asked to make necessary amendments in their regulations.

In order to make their learning experience more effective and keeping them in tandem with the rest of the students the High court has also ordered the universities to put up gadgets like screen readers, screen magnifiers, speech recognition software, hand-held magnifiers and text-to-speech software in the classrooms.