Digital Literacy Skills and Assistive Technology Use as Enabler for Academic Performance of Visually Impaired Students at the Nigerian Law School

Abstract

Education is a tool that empowers individual irrespective of gender, age, status or appearance. Academic institutions serve as channels  through which formal education is acquired. This paper discusses the need to have a passionate consideration for the visually impaired  students of the Nigerian Law School who aspire to become legal practitioners. Digital literacy skill is the ability to use digital technologies  for information exchange across digital platforms by the visually impaired was discussed. Emphasize is laid on the need for assistive  technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, software for speech recognition, software that translates written text into audio  files, optical character recognition software, etc were highlighted. These technologies enhance the academic performance of the visually  impaired students, helping them to study with ease and less stress. Role of the teacher was also considered to be that of a care giver,  supporter and an influencer who assists the students to measure up academically through teacher-student relationship. The challenges  faced by the visually impaired students were also looked into. Some of the challenges include; inadequate trained personnel to teach,  infrastructural deficit, stigmatization, isolation and lack of well-equipped laboratories and libraries. It is recommended that laws, policies  and rules relating to the implementation of infrastructure in institutions of learning should be enforced, training of lecturers and  librarians on how provide assistance to the visually impaired should be considered, libraries and classrooms should be well equipped to  meet the needs of the students were highlighted among others.