PESHAWAR, Feb 24: Shortage of textbooks is forcing blind students here to use outdated course material as there is no braille press in the NWFP, students and teachers of the Institute for Blind Girls told Dawn on Thursday.

Noreen, 29, a blind teacher at the institute, said the teachers had been using the same teaching material for 12 years. A relief organization provided two Braille machines to the institute last year, which the teachers were using for preparing notes, she said. "Preparing notes on the Braille machine is time-consuming but a Braille press can print 600 copies at a time," she said.

There is no middle or high school for blind girls so their education stops at primary level. People with means sent their daughters to Islamabad or Karachi for higher education, the official in charge of the institute, Saeeda Nudrat, said. She said the institute should be upgraded.

There was need for a press, which could print books in Braille, she said. She said the primary school was also facing shortage of teachers. She said posts of a CT teacher, a music teacher, a religious teacher and Braille teacher were vacant in the institute. She said a post of warden should be created in the institute.

The institute is the only blind girls' school in the province where students are provided accommodation. Currently 18 girls aged between five and 15 years ware studying at the institute.

The school lacked a number of facilities and a suitable permanent building, Ms Nudrat said. There are four maids at the institute to look after the students but they also serve in a welfare home being run in the ground floor of the same rented building.

The institutions will have to vacate the upper portion of the building, where the federal government, which owns the premises, plans to launch a project. A separate building for girls was needed, a teacher said. She said most parents did not send their daughters to the institute because the welfare home for boys was in the same building.