Post by account_disabled on Mar 11, 2024 8:12:38 GMT 5
MEXICO CITY, AUGUST 15, 2019.- Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Secretary of National Defense; Esteban Moctezuma Barragán, Secretary of Public Education, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico, and Rafael Ojeda, Secretary of the Navy, during the morning conference where the new textbooks for the 2019-2020 school year were presented. PHOTO: GALO CAÑAS /CUARTOSCURO.COM
Basic, upper secondary and higher education students have returned to school after a long vacation.
Hundreds of students returned enthusiastic France Mobile Number List about this beginning of the school term, however, happiness and the opportunity to learn will not come to everyone, such is the case of children with visual disabilities.
A recent initiative carried out by the National Commission for Free Textbooks (CONALITEG) consists of access to free books on the Internet, aimed at children with visual disabilities, blind or visually impaired .
And although the proposal was promising, the books that are currently on the web do not comply with the imposed standards and cannot be consulted.
Furthermore, students who study at the National Institute for the Rehabilitation of Blind and Visually Impaired Children in Mexico City have not received their textbooks in Braille and macrotext.
And inclusion?
Although for the first time books dedicated to blind or visually impaired people are on the Internet, they cannot be consulted because the uploaded images do not work with the programs they use.
This is an agreement that fails to comply with the requirement ordered in 2015, regarding the general provisions of web accessibility, which must be observed by the agencies and entities of the Federal Public Administration.
Said agreement was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF), in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, signed by Mexico in 2007; which requires government institutions to design their internet sites and content so that they can be fully consulted with tools such as the computer.
After returning to school, the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) announced that the books would be available on the web from the first day of classes.
“It is an issue that will offer facilities to the population, both to teachers, students and parents.”
The secretary and economist Esteban Moctezuma reiterated that the digital version was already ready, but it was not. An investigation by Animal Político revealed that the SEP postponed this deadline, and in approximately two months the version for blind people will already exist.
Blind people cannot tell the content of text or images without using “alt text” that fully describes the image. In the editions of school books, they do not contain this type of text, and even have a barrier that does not allow reading.
«Work is being done at Conaliteg to have the technological version that allows consultation with students with these needs; “The Commission aims to publish this version in approximately 60 days,” the SEP said.
Therefore, you might think that they completely forgot about inclusion and only thought about the circulation of the books.
Although the website of the National Commission for Free Textbooks (CONALITEG) is accessible and you can enter the book level menu, when you reach the one you want to consult, you can no longer read it.
“ A very important and basic requirement is keyboard navigation. The blind navigate with the keyboard, they press tab, tab, tab, tab, enter, tab, enter, and that's how they interact. The problem with these pages is that they are not accessible with a keyboard and are in images, so you cannot interact with the content and it is not accessible to assistive technologies ,” said Nancy Reyes, a consultant on this topic.
“They are bragging a lot that it is the first time that public education books are online, but they made them in an inaccessible way, and they are discriminating against children with disabilities, even if it is discrimination by omission.”
Nancy Reyes of Accessibility Lab
Until today, there is no official figure to know how many books remain to be delivered, since CONALITEG does not report the progress of delivery by levels.
Regarding the progress of book distribution, the SEP said:
Regarding the delivery of Braille and large type books, it is reported that this will begin once confirmation has been received from the states, with classes already started to be certain of enrollment, from each federal entity. , to make personalized shipping to each child and teacher who requires it.
SEP
For its part, the National Council for the Development of Inclusion of People with Disabilities (CONADIS) has not made its position known due to non-compliance with the web accessibility of textbooks.
Given this disappointing situation and the lack of special books, the institution is reusing those from the previous school year.
It seems that children with visual disabilities will have to wait even longer to have the appropriate tools and continue their educational training.
