Higher education is still unavailable for most people with disabilities in Belarus

Only systematic change and development of higher education can solve the problem of its inaccessibility for persons with disabilities, the experts say.

Only 10 percent of people with disabilities in Belarus have higher education. What is preventing these people from getting higher education and how to overcome these barriers?

 Office for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has developed the guiding principles of accessible education - a common strategy on the problem of the accessibility of higher education for persons with disabilities.

– Today disability all over the world is understood as the problem of interaction of a person and the environment. The best way to avoid exclusion from the society is to get higher education, – says Siarhei Drazdouski, the coordinator of the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities. But higher education in our country is almost inaccessible for persons with disabilities. As on November 2013 about 10 percent out of 532 thousand persons with disabilities in Belarus got higher education. Among them 6 percent of wheelchair-bound adults, 10.7% with vision impairments, 6.3% with hearing impairments. 

There are some barriers preventing people with disabilities from interaction with the environment. In 2001 WHO adopted the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – document giving examples of all the types and forms of barriers which can prevent a person from inclusion to the society, including to the process of education. Office for the Rights of People with Disabilities mentions the main types, which are “inadequate political measures, negative attitude of the society, lack of financing, inaccessibility of physical environment, inadequate information and communication, lack of consultations and inclusion in the society and lack of data and experience”.

Siarhei Drazdouski asserts that without systematic change and development of higher education it is useless to wait for any changes: “In most cases people try to solve the problem of inaccessibility of higher education for persons with disabilities by constructing ramps and special elevators in buildings for persons in wheelchairs and hiring interpreters for persons with hearing impairments. Barrier-free environment is not the main problem for disabled on the way to getting higher education. It would be much better to be guided by the “Accessibility” principle”.  

This principle consists in the elimination of barriers which prevent persons with disabilities from exercising their rights. 

Experts say that there are educational establishments in Belarus where necessary conditions for students with different forms of disability have been created. For example State institute of management and social technologies of BSU. Unique specialists who are able to find an approach to each student work here and it can compensate other shortcomings of this educational establishment.

During the conference “Modernization of education: challenges and perspectives”, organized with the assistance of the International Consortium EuroBelarus, specialists discussed the possibilities of the improvement of domestic education. Experts have created a collective project of proposals to the new Education Code. 

Thus, Uladzimir Dunaeu, the member of the Public Bologna Committee, stated that “availability, quality and cost are the main measures of education’s efficiency. While availability of education is enhancing in Belarus, its funding and quality are steadily descending”.

Let us also recall that EuroBelarus Information Service has earlier reported that Office for the Rights of People with Disabilities prepared concrete recommendations, following the parliament hearings on amendments and supplements to the Education Code held on December 4, 2013 in Minsk. It is supposed that amendments would promote the provision of the education’s accessibility including for persons with the peculiarities of development and disability at all the levels of basic middle education and while getting extra education.