This document summarizes opportunities for learning and access to information for people with disabilities in Bangladesh. It discusses data on disability rates in Bangladesh and notes initiatives by the government and non-profits to increase educational access, including establishing special schools. The document outlines Bangladesh's obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to provide access to the physical environment, transportation, information and communication. It also discusses the use of assistive technologies and applications to make information and communication more inclusive for people with disabilities.

1. Presentation on Learning
Opportunities for the Persons
with Disabilities
Presented by
Vashkar Bhattacharjee
vashkar79@hotmail.com

2. DISABILITY DATA
• According to WHO report 2011, 15%people have some
form of disability in Bangladesh.
• According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics’ (BBS)
Household Income Expenditure Survey HIES2010
data from the new sub-modules on disability shows
that the net percentage of population suffering from
any type of disability is about 9.07%, of which 9.63%
is in rural and 7.49% is in urban areas.
• BBS’s another report on Sample Vital Registration
System (SVRS) 2010 has evident in crude disability
rate per thousand populations was 10.18 with 11.47
for male and 8.84 for female. Crude disability rate by
locality and sex.
• Ministry of Social Welfare has been conducting in a
special census by which 1.5milion Plus people with
Disability already registered.

3. ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE IN CRPD
Article 9
 To enable persons with disabilities to live independently
and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties
shall take appropriate measures to ensure to persons
with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others,
to the physical environment, to transportation, to
information and communications, including information
and communications technologies and systems, and to
other facilities and services open or provided to the
public, both in urban and in rural areas…

4. EDUCATION SYSTEM
Education for Children with Disabilities:
 In Bangladesh, there are three alternatives education system regarding the
academic provision of Children with Disability, i.e Special, Integrated, and
Inclusive educational systems.
 Besides, these education programs home based education program and
distance education program is also practiced.
 Government has a number of educational institutions for children with
disabilities . Also there a number of schools for the children with disabilities
run by NGOs and private sector. Ministry of Social Welfare also runs schools
for children with disabilities in 64 districts. Although education policy 2010
has specifically stated about children with disabilities in article 21, 22, 23 and
section 18, all the schools are not fully inclusive yet and the teachers are also
not capacitated to handle children with disabilities properly.
 Lake of Technology used effect in the education of Children with
Disabilities.

5. ICT SKILLS
 People with Disabilities are accessing ICT’s
through skill Development.
 ICT based employment are created.

6. TECHNOLOGY INCLUSION
 The government has taking initiatives to make the 24,000 websites of the
government offices accessible for person with disabilities by following the
standard of W3C 2.0 and has an initiative to develop a web accessibility
policy. In this regard Access to Information (A2I) program of the Prime
Minister’s Office has been working with relevant ministries and
department.
 The first Bangla “Text To Speech (TTS)”has been developed by which
visual impaired people can easily use Bangla in accessing computer
information. As the TTS voice is not up to the mark, further development
is required. But the visual impaired people can read the Bangla websites
and newspapers as well as write Bangla with this software. This open
source software has been localized in Bangla by local experts led by
person with disability.
 Also informally some technologically advanced group of youths have been
working on the development of money indicator apps for using in android
phones so that person with disabilities can easily identify the currency.
 The mobile proliferation in Bangladesh has led to innovative uses by the
people who have hearing disability. They are using the SMS based
communication by recording sign language messages and sending them
via Multimedia Short Text Messages. The mobile companies have the
opportunity to assist persons with disabilities by ensuring accessibility
such as introducing low cost voice and text based SMS.

7. WEB ACCESSIBILITY
 Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of removing
barriers that prevent access to websites by people with
disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and
edited, all users have equal access to information and
functionality.
 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a
series of Web accessibility guidelines published by the Web
accessibility Initiatives (WAI) of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C), the main international standards
organization for the World Wide Web.
 The current version, WCAG 2.0 is the widely used standard all
over the world.

8. TOOLS AND APPLICATIONS FOR ADAPTIVE
TECHNOLOGY
 Assistive technology software such as screen readers,
screen magnifiers and onscreen keyboards are available
as either proprietary of open source products.
 Open source software is software whose source code is
available for modification or enhancement by anyone.
 Open source Toolkit:
 NVDA,
 AMIS,
 Digital Braille,
 Refreshable Braille display,
 Screen reading software,
 Mobile phone accessibility,
 Android phone accessibility,
 Screen magnifier,
 Text based mobile communication for speech and
hearing disability.

9. ACCESS TO INFORMATION PROGRAM (A2I)
PRODUCTION OF MULTIMEDIA DIGITAL
TALKING BOOK PROJECT
1. YPSA Provide the production of Multimedia Digital
talking book of 33 Primary School books up to class
Five .
2. All trainees will be able to access the Multimedia
DAISY Books
3. Improved communication skill in English
4. These text book uploaded on the National E-Content
repository (Jatio e-tothokosh) www.infokosh.gov.bd

10. INCLUSIVE PUBLISHING
 Training workshop on “Inclusive Publishing” was conducted
during 15 to 17 September 2014 at the BASIS Auditorium,
Dhaka. This program was conducted by the DAISY
Consortium with support from WIPO and Accessible Books
Consortium. The partner organizations from Bangladesh were
Access to Information program, Prime Minister Office (A2I),
Government of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Association of
Software and Information Services (BASIS) and YPSA.
Education Minister Mr. Nurul Islam Nahid handover the
certificates to the trainees in the closing ceremony at the
Prime Minister’s Office on 18th September.

11. WHAT IS ACCESSIBLE BOOKS
Accessible Books which can access by all in terms of
disability or any other limitation.
 Unicode Text and Accessible E-Book
 Daisy Multimedia Books
 Digital Braille
 Honorable prime Minister of Bangladesh has distributed
accessible books to the students with visual Disability.

12. THANK YOU