As many as 155 special students of Jeevan Jyoti, a 31-years-old school of the Inner Wheel Club of Dhanbad received some technical gear today that will improve their online training.

The State Bank of India also provided five computer sets to the school management during a function held in the school at Bekar Bandh, during which the SBI administrative unit team led by assistant general manager Shivanand Prasad interacted with the students online.

Talking to The Telegraph Online Prasad, said assistance has been provided as the Dan Utsav Samaroh is being organized by SBI since October 2 under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative.

Faculty members of the school led by principal Aparna Das who were present during the function apprised the SBI officers team of the activities, including education, vocational and physical and mental training carried out in school for mentally and visually challenged, and deaf and dumb students.

The faculty members comprised of chief manager Ashok Kumar Tiwari and assistant manager Somnath Chatterjee.

Das informed the SBI team that all activities, which were suspended for about a month ever since the imposition of lockdown on March 22, were restarted online using the five internet-enabled computer sets already available at the institute.

Ranjeet Singh, a speech therapist and special educator of the school, while interacting with the SBI officers said, “Besides organizing online training using computers, we also visit the homes some severely-affected children, particularly those who are autistic, or affected with cerebral palsy.”

“As cerebral palsy affected children suffer from movement related disorders, the specially designed exercise sessions are crucial for them. Physical sessions help them maintain balance and posture and they also learn crawling or climbing,” said Singh.

They visit the children once in a fortnight during which they provide training to their parents as well, so that they can continue training at home itself.

“Around 10 faculty members come to school every day to carry out online training using the computer systems from 11 to 11.40am and 12 noon to 12.40pm,” he said.

Art and craft training takes place on Thursday and Saturday.

“The five additional computers provided to us today will help us to provide online training during the lockdown. In a post-lockdown situation as well we can upload various software like JAWS, which is helpful for providing training to visually impaired children,” said Singh.

For students who are financially weak and do not have more than one smartphone at home, as family members may carry them outside during class hours, the school sends the videos of the exercises via WhatsApp.

"They can watch these videos and practice at home when they can access the smartphone again,” said Singh, adding that they are seeking sponsors for some financially weak students who can be provided tabs for training.