Government turns a deaf ear to colleges plea

BHUBANESWAR: Education in Satyabhama Devi College for the Hearing Impaired, the only such college in the State, has been  severely affected due to funds crunch. Even as the college authorities have been appealing to the State Government for provision of grant-in-aid to the college, there has been no positive response from the Government’s side yet. The college started functioning in 2007 under the Satyabhama Devi Welfare Trust to impart higher education in arts stream to deaf students. It caters to students who pass from seven high schools meant for hearing impaired in the State. Located at Patrapada, it is the second such college in the country after Chennai-based Saint Louis Institute for Deaf and Blind, which offers only commerce. Since 2007, three batches of students from the college have passed out successfully in the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) Examination. In fact, last year, students of the college achieved 100 per cent result in the Plus-II arts examination for the third consecutive year. In the first batch, 23 students had passed the Plus-II examination from the college while 28 students passed in the second batch. Of 42 students, 37 appeared for the exam this year. “Last year, the pass percentage of students was 100 and all the 17 students who appeared for the examination secured first division,” said Niroja Laxmi Mohapatra, the managing trustee of the college.  Despite the excellent performance of students, funds shortage has been making it difficult for the Trust to run the college. “All the students are residential and come from poor background. They pay just `600 per month as hostel and other charges, and this too many a time irregularly. We cannot demand more from them knowing the fact that they cannot afford it. The college functions with the help of public donations and maintaining it is getting difficult with each passing day,” she said. Niroja said the Higher Education department has provisions to give grant-in-aid to private educational institutions  that have run for a minimum period of five years in urban centres and a period of three years in rural centres.  “There is no such provision for higher education institutions catering to special students. When the Government knows that such an institution exists in the State, provision can be made for formulating a grant-in-aid policy for it,” Niroja said. The trust had earlier this week taken out a rally urging the State Government to look into their demand of 100 per cent grant-in-aid for the college. This apart, they also demanded fixation of the teacher-pupil ratio for the college at 1:8 and provision of stipend for the deaf students.