Thiruvananthapuram, The Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has launched audio books for all students, with a special emphasis on visually challenged children, an official said.

KITE has also released audio books and sign language adapted classes of revision portions highlighting on the focus areas for classes 10 and 12 for the annual examination, as part of its 'First Bell' Digital Classes aired through the KITE VICTERS educational channel.

K. Anvar Sadath, CEO, KITE said all revision classes in audio books shall be heard in an enjoyable way like listening to a radio programme and are easily downloadable and shareable in mp3 format and this is the first such module in the country in the general education sector.

"The entire 10th standard revision classes are covered in just 10 hours. All materials will be available in the First Bell portal firstbell.kite.kerala.gov.in. The portal facilitates easy downloading and sharing of the Audio books. KITE has issued necessary direction to the concerned officials to extend the broadband internet facility provided to schools as part of Hi-Tech school project for the required students," said Sadath.

"Already free software based screen reading software 'orca' has been deployed in all laptops supplied to schools and all visually challenged teachers were given specialised ICT training by KITE. The new exclusive audio books would be an added advantage to these students."

Specific classes with sign Language adapted contents have also been developed for students with hearing disabilities. At present, these students are being provided with special classes made by their own teachers at school levels.

But with the inclusion of sign language adapted classes, these students would also be able to learn the revision classes in general and more structured way.

The digital classes, titled 'First Bell', commenced from June 1, 2020, as an interim arrangement for regular classes and since then newer innovative models have emerged and the latest is the listening module.

First Bell has completed the telecast of over 7,000 classes (over 3,500 hours) including the Kannada and Tamil medium classes along with the general medium classes.

"This new model would be subsequently replicated for all classes," Sadath added.