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B. Joyshree Devi



B. Joyshree Devi (from Manipur) has created history by being the first ever deaf candidate from the entire North East to successfully complete her D.Ed. in Special Education (HI) from Montfort Centre for Education, Tura. While most deaf adults would dread a 2-year regular teacher-training programme, with all hearing batch-mates and teachers, Joyshree has been an exception from the start. She is currently working with Ferrando Centre for Speech and Hearing, Umniuh-Khwan for a project on “Inclusive Education” - RAISE - North East. 

Joyshree Devi was born profoundly deaf. But her ambitions have always been extra-ordinary. Remembering her school days at Manipur, she had often shared her disappointment and anger at the teachers there who didn’t know Sign Language and never really could teach much. She confessed that she passed class 10th from Manipur, without even understanding meanings of basic words which a class 3 student must know. She credits Ferrando Centre which she joined in class 11th as the institution where she truly learnt and understood the beauty of language.

When she joined Montfort, she was apprehensive but the encouraging staff and endearing batch mates allayed all her fears. All her classes were interpreted in Sign Language. On Montfort’s request & recommendation, Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) exempted her from the compulsory paper on “Fundamentals of Speech” and gave an alternate paper on “Sign Language and Bilingualism”. This landmark adaptation would go a long way in encouraging more deaf students into the course.

B. Joyshree Devi is a role model to many deaf students today. But to her, deafness isn’t the true disability; what makes the deaf student feel disabled is poor quality of education. She believes that most deaf students fail year after year and drop out of school not because they’re dumb but because they are made to feel dumb in class. With that in mind, she urges all teachers of deaf and parents of deaf, especially from her own state, to learn Sign Language so that the meaning reaches to the minds. 

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