The IDIA Disability Access Programme (I-DAP), in collaboration with Enable India Foundation, will host specialized training programmes for law students with visual impairment enrolled in universities and pursuing higher education in the legal field. This pilot session of the programme shall tentatively start in the third week of December and shall be conducted in an online audio mode. It is in pursuance with I-DAP’s policy to promote accessibility and inclusion in the legal field.
The I-DAP wing of IDIA advocates for systemic changes in law schools and the wider legal ecosystem with the objective of making our spaces more accessible for persons with disabilities.
About Inclusive Learning Training Programme
The United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (Act) provide for frameworks to include persons with disabilities in the mainstream, and remove barriers to their equal access of resources. The Act puts an obligation on all establishments, which also include educational institutions, to provide equal opportunities to education, and reasonable accommodations (wherever required), for persons with disabilities.
Furthering this idea of equal access to resources, the program will provide software training to law students with visual impairment which would help in enhancing access to their curriculum, legal databases, and various digital technologies. This training programme aims to help students with visual impairment with their academic and professional enhancement.
Based on our experience and observations, we realize that there is a need for a different way of teaching to equip students with visual impairment with these software skills which are essential to multiple aspects of their lives and which would become increasingly important in the times to come. While universities comply with the law in many ways, we feel that lack of software training for law school coursework is a major lacuna to foster true accessibility and inclusivity in these universities.
Training sessions
Given the current situation due to COVID-19 pandemic and in hope to reach as many students as possible, the pilot session of the training programme shall be conducted in an online/audio mode for visually impaired students by trainers from Enable India Foundation.
IDIA will facilitate the programme, by coordinating the programme and, conducting and taking this training to law campuses (virtually and physically when campuses re-open) for all students with visual impairment. The training packets designed during the course of the programme shall be available in public domain for reference and access by all students, as and when required.
The training curriculum comprises of four specially crafted modules, each of which teach an essential skill required by every law student.
The Training Curriculum aims to cover the following modules:
- Module I: Basics of using screen readers for computers
- Module II: Basic and advanced features of MS Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint)
- Module III: Using legal databases
- Module IV: Core skills for various documents’ drafting (formatting, visual effects, organizing and presenting, citations and plagiarism, writing structure, emailing and documenting)
Duration
The pilot session of the programme shall tentatively start in the third week of December and shall be conducted in an online audio mode by trainers from Enable India Foundation. The duration of the course and the number of students per batch shall be decided based on the preliminary assessment of the number of the participants and their availability and class schedule. The sessions can also be extended based on the request and willingness of the participants.
Fill the form!
For registration, please fill the form at https://forms.gle/7TzHZcSgVQgPrfDf6 or reach out to Svetlana Correya, Director in charge, I-DAP at svetlana@idialaw.org with the subject line ‘IDIA Inclusive Learning Programme’. The last date for filling up the form is December 5, 2020.