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Students with visual disabilities will be able to read more books in Braille thanks to a Pounds 200,000-a-year government grant. Education secretary David Blunkett said that the money would be paid annually to the Royal National Institute for the Blind to help it reproduce books and other educational materials in Braille.

A spokesman for the RNIB said that the cash would benefit blind students in further and higher education as well as those taking school-level qualifications. The RNIB's total annual budget for Braille is Pounds 4 million so the government grant is a 5 per cent increase in funds.