The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) are claiming that thousands of blind and partially sighted children are being denied proper access to books in Braille.
There are over 20,000 school age children in the UK with sight problems which require specialist treatment and the majority of them are in mainstream schools. The RNIB claimed that only 12% of maths books, and 8% of science books were available in Braille or large print and that there were no atlases or dictionaries at all available for 14-16-year-olds.
In a new report entitled "Right to Read,' RNIB campaigns officer David Mann said: 'It's a scandal that in today's digital age of instant information, blind and partially-sighted children are going without the most vital of all things in school - books.'
Mann praised teachers for doing the best they could but said the system was inefficient and that it was down to the government to remedy it. The RNIB's survey found 90% of teachers saying blind children were being affected both educationally and socially. Many teachers had to photocopy, enlarge or re-type textbooks.
The RNIB is calling for a central pool of books to be made available online for teachers to download and adapt. The Department for Education and Skills said that special educational needs was a government priority and that spending per child had increased by over £1,000 in real terms since 1998 with local authority expenditure increasing from £2.8 bn in 2001-02 to £4.5 bn in 2006-07.
In a related move the RNIB in Scotland says that transcription to Braille and large print for children varies widely in local authorities. They met with MSPs from all parties in the Scottish Parliament to call for a national transcription service to be funded by the Scottish Executive.
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November 2006 | 
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