Delhi University conducts webinar on COVID-19 and the challenges for the visually-impaired

The Delhi University on Tuesday organised a webinar on COVID-19 for visually impaired students and faculty. The objective of the webinar was to help them deal with the problems they are facing due to the nationwide lockdown to restrict the spread of coronavirus. The university has nearly 3,000 students with disabilities. The three-hour-long webinar on ‘COVID-19 and the Challenges of the Visually Impaired’ was presided over by Vice-Chancellor Professor Yogesh Tyagi. The webinar was attended by nearly 150 visually challenged students and faculty members of the university. Along with discussions on issues and challenges, the webinar focussed on solutions faced by them during the COVID-19 pandemic. The university said that it plans to prepare a policy document concerning the interventions required for the visually impaired based on the webinar. The document will be circulated in the public domain for implementation. The recording of the webinar will be made available on the official website of Delhi University. The vice-chancellor assured the visually impaired students and the faculty members that the varsity will ensure that difficulties being faced by them with respect to academic and other issues due to change in content-delivery methods are addressed with utmost sensitivity and commitment. “There is no problem which cannot be overcome with proper support and accessibility,” he said. The University has also released modified academic calendar for the 2019-2020 session. As per the new notification, the Delhi University will now disperse classes for the even semester on 15 May 2020. It was earlier scheduled to disperse the classes on 28 April but modified its calendar due to COVID-19 lockdown. Last week, the university had released the online exam form for the May-June examinations. Students can fill the form by 15 May.