Question

The visual acuity used as cut off for differentiating "normal" from "abnormal" children in the School Vision Screening Programme in India is:

• A. 6/6.
• B. 6/9.
• C. 6/12.
• D. 6/60.

Hint:

School screening needs a practical cut-off, not perfect 6/6 or a very poor 6/60; India's programme uses 6/9.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

Step 1: Understanding the Question.
We need to know the visual acuity cut off used by India's School Vision Screening Programme to decide whether a child's vision is normal or needs referral for a full eye check-up.

Step 2: Key Concept.
School vision screening is a mass, first-level check done by teachers or trained health workers, using a Snellen's chart at a fixed distance, so the pass level has to be practical, not a perfect 6/6 reading that even many healthy children may not hit on a single quick test. Under India's School Vision Screening Programme (run through the National Programme for Control of Blindness / RBSK), a child whose vision is WORSE than 6/9 in either eye is treated as "abnormal" and referred to a vision centre or ophthalmologist for a full check and, if needed, glasses.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation.
6/6 (option A) is the textbook ideal for perfect vision, but using it as the pass mark for a mass school screening test would flag far too many normal children as "abnormal," since day to day variation and testing conditions rarely give a perfect 6/6 reading even in healthy eyes. This makes it impractical as the screening cut-off.
6/12 (option C) is looser than the actual programme cut-off and would miss children with a real, correctable refractive problem, since 6/12 already represents a meaningful drop in vision.
6/60 (option D) is far too poor a cut-off for a "normal versus abnormal" screening line; a child scoring 6/60 already has a marked visual problem and would in fact be picked up on almost any screening test. Using 6/60 as the pass/fail line for a screening programme meant to catch mild-to-moderate refractive errors early would let many children with real vision problems (in the 6/9 to 6/36 range) pass as "normal," defeating the point of screening.
6/9 (option B) is the accepted working cut-off: it is strict enough to pick up children with early or mild refractive error, but not so strict that normal healthy children keep getting wrongly referred.

Step 4: Final Answer.
Note on the source key: the scanned original answer key marks its stated answer with its own question mark, showing the paper's compilers were unsure of it. Current teaching on India's School Vision Screening Programme uses 6/9, not 6/60, as the normal/abnormal cut-off, since 6/60 is far too poor a level to serve as a screening pass mark. This solution follows the 6/9 standard used in current PSM/ophthalmology teaching.
\[ \boxed{6/9} \]