Activists striving for the rights of visually impaired people have called for production and scaling up of Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADT) for learners with visual impairment as the recently ratified Marrakesh treaty recommends. Examples of accessible formats include Braille, books on devices such as Orbit Readers, books with audio components among others. The treaty signed in Marrakesh on June 27, 2013, came into force on September 30, 2016, and was ratified by Rwanda on September 7, 2020. The treaty is considered one of the key milestones in ensuring that persons with disabilities have the right to inclusive education. It seeks to facilitate the production and international transfer of specially adapted books for people with visual impairments easier. William Safari, the Project Manager for Education for All Project at National Union of Disability Organisation of Rwanda (NUDOR), says that since his childhood up to today, accessible learning materials for people with visual impairment is still a main challenge. Safari, who is also visually impaired, said that the country should make textbooks in digital format available, affordable and accessible for children with disabilities and, thus, improve learning outcomes for all children. “In many school libraries, there are no resources in braille. There is no system of transcribing the materials for blind people. It is a struggle to do an assignment from primary to university level due to lack of enough resources in braille and other digital formats that can help visually impaired students,” he said. To manage the situation, through his studies, he says he used to ask friends to help him. “I had to spend a lot of time, money to make friends because I was begging for services from them to accomplish my tasks assigned by teachers,” he said. He said many visually impaired people drop out of schools due to lack of such learning materials. 400,000 visually impaired people in Rwanda Flora Mutezigaju, Inclusion Specialist, USAID Soma Umenye Project says that there are over 285 million people worldwide who are blind or visually impaired and 90 per cent of them are from developing and least developed countries. In Rwanda, she says, there are over 400,000 persons with visual impairment including 2, 236 students in all levels of education. “The people need to have access to books and information,” she said. She said the need has been stressed by the Marrakesh treaty which calls for urgent action. She said efforts are needed to ensure domestication, operationalization and enforcement of the Marrakesh treaty to ensure adaptation of learning materials in accessible formats by visually impaired people in Rwanda. “In Rwanda and around the world, copyright law makes it illegal to make and distribute copies of works in formats accessible to people with visual impairment without seeking the authorization of rights holders, yet the treaty wants governments to establish a set of limitations and exceptions to traditional copyright law,” she said. Rights holders say sharing works across borders including for personal financial gain could be infringing copyright. Few books in accessible format “Books in accessible format are difficult and expensive to produce. The market also failed and only between one and seven per cent of books are published in a format that individuals with visual impairment can read,” Mutezigaju noted. She said the Soma Umenya project and Rwanda Basic Education Board are supporting the development of accessible book formats of teaching and learning materials. These include piloting Orbit Readers with Primary one to Primary three students and teachers’ transcription and printing in Braille of 54 different titles of P1 and P3 supplementary readers. She said that there is also development of 54 accessible digital leaders (with audio for students with visual impairment). “Authorized entities such as libraries, education institutions, and associations of the blind can help convert published books into accessible format copies and supply them,” she said. According to the Marrakesh Treaty, each country is required to create one or more limitations or exceptions to copyright law meaning a range of acts are permitted without infringing copyright in the interests of beneficiaries. “As obligations of the treaty, under such limitations or exceptions, any work (audiobooks, text) can be copied to convert it into accessible (digital) format. Government must allow all nonprofit authorized entities to create accessible copies and make them available,” she said. She said that parties to the Marrakesh treaty must allow exchange across international borders of accessible format works. She explained the national copyright law should grant permission to reproduce published books into accessible formats. However, the treaty says to ensure interests of copyright holders and beneficiaries in need of the formats, the copyright law must provide conditions for exceptions to be evoked. “The activity must be undertaken on a non-profit basis and accessible format copies must be supplied exclusively to be used by beneficiaries,” she said. Among the main challenges to the treaty implementation include publishers and authors that may passively resist believing they will lose out profits. Lack of legal remedies supporting the threat and integration of ICT technologies in schools are among other challenges. Currently, UNESCO seeks to support the development, review and promotion of inclusive policies and Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADT) for Learners with Disabilities under UN Partnership to Promote the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Albert Mutesa, the Secretary-General of the Rwandan Commission on UNESCO said that the successful implementation will ensure access to education for all, poverty alleviation, social integration and cultural participation among others. “We need to address barriers faced by visually impaired people. Institutions must make copies in accessible formats,” he said. Minister of State in charge of primary and secondary school Gaspard Twagirayezu said that The Ministry of Education will continue to work with education stakeholders in the implementation of Special Needs Education Policy by “Promoting Inclusive Education through Accessible Digital Learning Materials.”
