Punjab schools to put up boards mentioning rights of disabled students

A welcome step to promote inclusion in the school education system! The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) has directed all schools to display boards that mention the rights of disabled students under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, outside the institutions.

The PSEB has said that many schools are not following the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that say all schools must put up these boards to spread awareness among people about RPWD 2016.

To empower people with disabilities and create awareness among the public as well, the High Court had also directed the Education Department to put such display boards outside schools, on public transport buses, at hospitals and government offices.

The PSEB has warned the schools of tough action if they do not follow these orders.

In April this year, the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) in Punjab had increased the reservation for disabled candidates from 3% to 5% on seats in medical courses in the state.

Though there are about 50 MBBS seats reserved for physically disabled persons in eight medical colleges in the state, only 11 candidates in this category have applied at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) for these seats. Counselling for MBBS admission is underway,

More than 40 of these MBBS seats reserved for the physically handicapped or disabled persons will remain vacant and these will be merged into general category.

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