Bajaj Institute of Learning
A HUMANITARIAN MISSION OF EMPOWERING THE DEAF
Institutes like BIL as it is, are very few, and people in need of such institutes are not even aware of them. HT has taken up the responsibility to provide a platform to such exclusive institutes so that they can reach out to the people in need of their intervention.
The Bajaj Public Charitable Trust is a registered, voluntary, secular Trust established in 1966.
Recognizing the insufficient resources available in the country to address the educational and training needs of handicapped persons, especially hearing/speech impaired, the Trust established as a division, the Bajaj Institute of Learning (BIL) in 1999.
B I L provides free education to the deaf. The Bajaj Public Charitable Trust is certified by the FCRA, and all donations are 80-G tax exempted. The Institute operates at Dehradun, in Uttarakhand and currently offers facilities for vocational training, schooling, counseling and diagnostic services to persons with hearing/speech disabilities throughout India.
A Co-ordination center initiated at Mumbai is engaged in a continuous effort to network and liaison with the government, with organizations offering similar services, corporate houses and concerned individuals, so as to raise the requisite resources and goodwill for the deaf.
The imachal Times went to meet the Director of the institute, Air Cmde Amul Kapoor VM (Retd), to learn about the kind of programmes run at BIL, and the impediments faced in offering specialized education to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. He had recently taken over the reins from Air Cmde AK Khanna VSM (Retd), on Oct 1, 2012. He extended a warm welcome and called up the academic head Anjali Agarwal to join us for sharing information about the institute.
HT: Kudos to the institute and the people associated with it for this lofty venture for the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH ) children. Who are the wonderful people behind this niche and handicap specific institute and how it came into existence?
Kapoor: This property belongs to Arjun Bajaj and his wife Radha Bajaj. There is an interesting story related to its inception. Once Bajaj fell sick and he recovered with the blessings of their Guru. He wanted to give his Guru a ‘gurudakshina’, and on his behest, Bajaj opened this institute for deaf children. They are the trustees of the school. The institute was initially for classes 9–12, but as the children coming here lacked the basic education to get enrolled in these classes, a need was felt to add junior classes. As the addition of classes was in reverse order, we have a gap with no class 6-7 currently.
HT: What major problems deaf people face?
Kapoor: The great problem deaf people face is learning a spoken/written language. Hearing children learn one or more spoken languages naturally through hearing. Deaf children, deprived of the sense of hearing, have to learn written languages very slowly.
HT: Since this is an institute for specific needs of the DHH children, what is the specialized curriculum followed here?
Kapoor: We are providing them unrestricted environment because of their handicap. We initially teach them Indian Sign Language (ISL), which is a mode of visual communication that consists of finger spelling, gestures, body language, grammar and expression. Two languages are taught, one is ISL, which is representative of Indian culture, and is developed in National Institute of Hearing Handicap (NIHH) in which both the hands are used, and the other is English Sign Language (ESL) used by Americans in which only one hand is used. ESL is the target language. Here ISL is used to teach ESL. So educational bilingualism is the unique aspect of our syllabus.
A HUMANITARIAN MISSION OF EMPOWERING THE DEAF Institutes like BIL as it is, are very few, and people in need of such institutes are not even aware of them. HT has taken up the responsibility to provide a platform to such exclusive institutes so that they can reach out to the people in need of their intervention.
The Bajaj Public Charitable Trust is a registered, voluntary, secular Trust established in 1966.
Recognizing the insufficient resources available in the country to address the educational and training needs of handicapped persons, especially hearing/speech impaired, the Trust established as a division, the Bajaj Institute of Learning (BIL) in 1999.
B I L provides free education to the deaf. The Bajaj Public Charitable Trust is certified by the FCRA, and all donations are 80-G tax exempted. The Institute operates at Dehradun, in Uttarakhand and currently offers facilities for vocational training, schooling, counseling and diagnostic services to persons with hearing/speech disabilities throughout India.
A Co-ordination center initiated at Mumbai is engaged in a continuous effort to network and liaison with the government, with organizations offering similar services, corporate houses and concerned individuals, so as to raise the requisite resources and goodwill for the deaf.
The imachal Times went to meet the Director of the institute, Air Cmde Amul Kapoor VM (Retd), to learn about the kind of programmes run at BIL, and the impediments faced in offering specialized education to deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. He had recently taken over the reins from Air Cmde AK Khanna VSM (Retd), on Oct 1, 2012. He extended a warm welcome and called up the academic head Anjali Agarwal to join us for sharing information about the institute.
HT: Kudos to the institute and the people associated with it for this lofty venture for the deaf and hard of hearing (DHH ) children. Who are the wonderful people behind this niche and handicap specific institute and how it came into existence?
Kapoor: This property belongs to Arjun Bajaj and his wife Radha Bajaj. There is an interesting story related to its inception. Once Bajaj fell sick and he recovered with the blessings of their Guru. He wanted to give his Guru a ‘gurudakshina’, and on his behest, Bajaj opened this institute for deaf children. They are the trustees of the school. The institute was initially for classes 9–12, but as the children coming here lacked the basic education to get enrolled in these classes, a need was felt to add junior classes. As the addition of classes was in reverse order, we have a gap with no class 6-7 currently.
HT: What major problems deaf people face?
Kapoor: The great problem deaf people face is learning a spoken/written language. Hearing children learn one or more spoken languages naturally through hearing. Deaf children, deprived of the sense of hearing, have to learn written languages very slowly.
HT: Since this is an institute for specific needs of the DHH children, what is the specialized curriculum followed here?
Kapoor: We are providing them unrestricted environment because of their handicap. We initially teach them Indian Sign Language (ISL), which is a mode of visual communication that consists of finger spelling, gestures, body language, grammar and expression. Two languages are taught, one is ISL, which is representative of Indian culture, and is developed in National Institute of Hearing Handicap (NIHH) in which both the hands are used, and the other is English Sign Language (ESL) used by Americans in which only one hand is used. ESL is the target language. Here ISL is used to teach ESL. So educational bilingualism is the unique aspect of our syllabus.
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