Mute/deaf student shines bright
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 23 2013 : Pukhram-bam Juliana Chanu, who is virtually mute and has very low hearing capacity outshone a large number of her peers when she scored the highest mark (88 out of 100) in Philosophy apart from securing letter marks in four subjects in the HSE 2013 conducted by COHSEM.

Among students of TG Hr Sec School who appeared in the HSE 2013, P Juliana secured second position in Arts stream.

In case the Continuance and Comprehensive Evaluation system was not adopted by COHSEM, Juliana could have secured 4th position in Arts stream.

Juliana is the eldest of four siblings born to P Shantiku-mar and P Hemolata of Na- ransena Awang Leikai, Bish-nupur district.

Juliana secured 88 marks in English out of 100, 72 in Manipuri (MIL), 84 in Political Science, 86 in Geography and 88 in Philosophy.

The Sangai Express interacted with Juliana in the hostel of TG Higher Secondary School today in writing as she is virtually mute and has impaired hearing capacity.

Pukhrambam Juliana

In a written reply, Juliana gave credit for her outstanding performance to her school's English teacher Oi-nam Anand.

As for her pro- fessional career, she chose civil service.

On account of her low hea-ring capacity and muteness, Juliana needed special class.

For students like them, train-ed teachers are required.

But Juliana did not get any special treatment from the Go- vernment.

She studied toge-ther with other normal stu- dents like a normal student.

Nonetheless, she received special care from Mathematics teacher of Moirang LCM High School Kh Rajen where Juliana studied from Nursery to Class X, Oinam Anand of TG Hr Sec School and hostel warden Gangarani.

For their special care and treatment, Juliana was able to achieve such a commendable feat, said her father Shanti-kumar.

Oinam Anand said that he made special arrangements for teaching Juliana.

Pictures and diagrams were used to make Juliana understand the main concepts of each and every chapter.

Once she understood the main concepts, she studied other de- tails and analogies by herself, Anand said.

She has extraordinary capacity of concentration while reading books.

She could read for 14 hours a day.

"On her first day in TG Hr Sec School, Juliana was sitting on the front bench and was staring hard at me.

When I asked her if she had any doubt, one of the fellow students told me that she had hearing problems", Anand recalled.

Since then, Oinam Anand started giving special class to Juliana.

Juliana suffered critical high fever when she was just three years old.

Soon after, she started losing her hearing capacity and she could not speak properly.

Doctors told her parents that she can hear and speak like a normal person if she is fitted with hearing aid which costs about Rs four to five lakhs and undergoes speech therapy.

But Shantikumar who is teaching Philosophy in CI College, Bishnupur as a part-time lecturer is not in a condition to buy hearing aid for her daughter.

With the help of DESAM, Juliana once went underwent medical treatment, while MSF gave her text books.

From the Government's side, her condition has been recorded by SCERT.