Tarn Taran district gets school for deaf

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 14

Under Pingalwara’s outreach programme for differently abled children, the first school for the deaf has been opened in Tarn Taran district.

The initiative was taken by Gurjant Singh whose younger son Harmanpreet Singh (13) was born deaf. 

Gurjant, who runs a flour mill, volunteered to dedicate a portion of his property at Patti in Tarn Taran district for the cause of such children. 

He approached the All-India Pingalwara Society, Amritsar, with his proposal. It was readily accepted.

“I discovered my child was intelligent despite his handicap. I wanted him to be educated. To start a school, there has to be a certain number of students at one place. So, I hired a loudspeaker-fitted rickshaw to make announcements regarding the coming up of a school for the deaf in nearby rural and urban areas and then through newspaper ads and pamphlets. That’s how I could gather a group of special children,” he said. 

The school has a strength of 12 special children of different age groups. The Pingalwara has spared two teachers for their education.

The children are also being taught through the video-conferencing technique in sign language. The Pingalwara Society had earlier introduced special sign language for the routine course up to higher secondary level.

RP Singh, a retired Air Force officer who has been associated with the Pingalwara Society for the past 15 years, said that the Patti school would cater to at least 192 villages around it. 

The school supplies are supported by Shri Bashi Ram Veero Devi Jain Charitable Trust through Home of Hope, Berkley, California.

As per the 2011 census, there are 1,46,696 hearing-impaired people in Punjab. RP Singh said that each of the 15,340 villages of Punjab must have at least 5-6 deaf people. “As per our survey, Tarn Taran district has about 2,810 hearing impaired people including children of school-going age. There was not a single school in the whole district for them earlier,” he said. 

This school is in addition to Pingalwara’s Bhagat Puran Singh Adarsh High School Buttar Kalan (Kadian) in Gurdaspur having strength of 400 students and Bhagat Puran Singh School for Deaf at Manawala in Amritsar where 102 students are getting education.