Competitive Exams: Rules changed for Divyang candidates, now 'own scribe' system will end; know the new guidelines..

Competitive Exams PwD Rules: The rules for using scribes for Divyang (PwD) candidates in competitive examinations have become stricter now. The central government has issued a new guideline, under which it has been made mandatory for all examination institutes to prepare their own scribe pool within the next two years. The 'own scribe system' being used earlier will gradually be completely abolished.

Why were the changes made?
The guideline issued by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment aims to ensure transparency and fairness in examinations. Many times, incidents of collusion between private scribes and candidates had come to the fore, which raised questions about the credibility of the examinations. Institutions like UPSC, SSC, and NTA had also expressed concern over this.

What will be the new provisions?
The examination institutes will have to prepare a trained and supervised scribe pool in two years.

Till then, 'own scribe' will be allowed only under special circumstances.

The qualification of the scribe should be 2-3 years less than the minimum eligibility of the exam.

The scribe cannot be a candidate for the same exam, and there should not be any conflict of interest.

Divyang candidates who are not able to write will get at least 20 minutes extra time for every hour.

Facilities for Divyaang students
The new guidelines state that the examination centers should be fully accessible. Such as ramps, lifts, wide corridors, seating on the ground floor, audio announcement facilities, etc. Apart from this, quiet rooms will also be provided for neurodiverse students and candidates with serious health conditions.

Candidates will be encouraged to take the exam independently. For this, assistive technology such as Braille, screen readers (JAWS, NVDA), speech-to-text software, and recording devices will be allowed. The personal and medical data of the candidates will be kept safe under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. At the same time, punitive action can be taken if the officials are negligent.

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