Reimagining South African higher education in response to Covid-19 and ongoing exclusion of students with disabilities

Abstract

In South Africa, access to education is regarded as a right enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution yet issues of inequality, poor access and exclusion remain as intense as they have always been for students with disabilities. When universities closed due to Covid-19, all students suffered in one way or the other but those with disabilities suffered the most as their support is not mainstreamed. This highlighted the need to create a seamless system of student support if we are to leave no student behind. To do this, the paper proposes the adoption of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework that supports inclusive teaching and learning. Adopting UDL is critical in ensuring curriculum access and in addressing fragmented student support. Supporting students with disabilities should be everyone’s responsibility and the sooner we adopt the principles of UDL, the better the learning outcomes for all students.

Keywords:

• Students with disabilities
• universities
• student support
• Universal Design for Learning

Introduction

It is estimated that 5.1% of the South African population has a disability and generally lacks access to basic services like education (South African Human Rights Commission 2017). This commission defines disability as

the loss or elimination of opportunities to take part in the life of the community, that is encountered by persons having physical, sensory, psychological, developmental, learning, neurological or other impairments, that may be permanent, temporary or episodic in nature, thereby causing barriers, activity limitations and participation restriction with the mainstream of society. These barriers may be due to economic, physical, social, attitudinal and/or cultural factors (SAHRC 2017: 7).

Similarly, Liachowitz (1988) argues that disability does not result from having an impairment but from how those who are different are devalued and pushed to the margins. In South Africa, there is recognition that disability is socially constructed and we acknowledge that people with disabilities are entitled to the same rights as those without disabilities. The White Paper on the Rights of People with Disabilities (Department of Social Development 2016) describes disability as an evolving concept, meaning that a lot depends on how impairments interact with attitudinal and environmental barriers and how these barriers limit the equal participation of people with disabilities in society. As such, people can have the same impairment but different experiences based on their context. Karisa, McKenzie, and De Villiers (2020) also recognize disability as resulting from the interaction of a person’s impairment with the environment. The environment, in the context of this manuscript, is the higher education (HE) system. Therefore, where students with disabilities are concerned, their success is influenced by the interaction of their impairment with the education system they find themselves in.

Transformation initiatives in education

South Africa attained democracy in 1994 and since then, access to education (basic, adult, and further) is a right enshrined in the Constitution (Republic of South Africa 1996). As such, all educational institutions have a responsibility to address past and present social inequalities, one of which is the marginalization of people with disabilities in education. In response to a myriad of historical educational inequalities that prevented many children and young people from having positive educational outcomes, South Africa adopted a framework for inclusion in the form of Education White Paper 6: Special Needs Education—Building an Inclusive Education and Training System (Department of Education 2001) which recognizes and celebrates diversity and promotes educational access and participation of all in the education system. The framework has short to long term goals of what needs to be done to ensure the basic education system transforms and responds to learner diversity. To complement this framework, a White Paper for Post School Education and Training was developed (Department of Higher Education and Training 2014). This emphasizes, among other things, the promotion of diversity, increased awareness of staff and students with disabilities and institutional capacity to address disabilities at HE level. However, it is left up to higher education institutions (HEIs) to interpret and operationalize this White Paper.

As our 30th democracy anniversary approaches, issues of inequality, poor access and exclusion remain as intense as they have always been for students with disabilities. Nevertheless, it is important to note that HEIs have acquired some awareness of the needs of students with disabilities, as indicated by the establishment of Disability Services Units (DSUs). What remains a challenge is the limited capacity within institutions to address all needs. The limited capacity tends to be concentrated in these units.

Another challenge is that the establishment of DSUs apart from other student support services suggests that universities regard students with disabilities as having ‘different learning needs from their nondisabled counterparts’ (Karisa, McKenzie, and De Villiers 2020: 1520). This arrangement could make non-DSU staff feel ‘unqualified’ to support students with disabilities and probably elevates DSU practitioners as ‘experts’, thus promoting disability expertise (Karisa, McKenzie, and De Villiers 2020). It is in this vein that Ntombela and Mahlangu (2019) caution that in establishing these units, we should be careful not to perpetuate the medical model where only a few people are considered as more knowledgeable in working with students with disabilities. Instead, they argue, these units should be integrated into student support services so that the available support for all students is seamless (Ntombela and Mahlangu 2019). Within this seamless support structure, all staff would be capacitated to address all queries, including coordinating and facilitating the necessary academic adjustments. This is important because research has shown that when curriculum adaptations and accommodations are made, all students benefit (UNESCO 1993).

The plight of students with disabilities during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown period

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people with disabilities were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic because the services they rely on were abruptly interrupted (Kim and Fienup 2021). I observed the same at the HEI where I was based. When all HE operations were moved online due to lockdown protocols, it exposed how under-prepared we were in supporting students with disabilities. The transfer of academic programs to online spaces brought various challenges to the teaching and learning process, and all students suffered in one way or the other. However, students with disabilities were gravely affected because they could not access support in the form of recording of lectures, note takers, and extended deadlines for projects (Meleo-Erwin, Kollia, Fera, Jahren, and Basch 2020). These students had no access to specialized equipment nor the DSU staff who normally convert materials to the format they require (formatting, font size or even audio), as a result, many felt they were left on the margins.

In my perspective, the compartmentalization of support at this institution kept students with disabilities on the periphery of all academic activities during this time because they only get support from the DSU staff. The DSU staff waits for students to bring their materials to be converted to whatever format they access best, they do not engage staff. Therefore, academics have no idea which students have disabilities in their classes, let alone what support they require. As such, when teaching moved to online platforms, they did not know these students and their learning needs. Had we offered a seamless support service, all support personnel would have known which students have disabilities and they would have engaged faculty to ensure reasonable accommodations were provided.

Lessons learnt

This experience highlighted the challenge caused by a parallel system of support. This opinion piece argues that a parallel systems of student support in HEIs marginalizes students with disabilities. It is time that we reimagine HE and create a seamless student support system. We need to have conversations about leaving no students behind and ensuring that our systems support all students. The conversations should highlight the need to mainstream disability such that supporting students with disabilities becomes everyone’s business, not only that of the DSU staff.

This is not a pipe dream if HEIs move for the adoption of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework developed from architectural Universal Design principles (Ralabate 2021). It was developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology to guide ‘the design of learning experiences to proactively meet the needs of all learners’ (Posey 2021: 2). Within this framework, content is presented in multiple and flexible means (CAST 2011) which offers students alternatives ‘for engagement, representation, and actions and expression’ (Purdue University). UDL sets clear learning goals and provides flexible choices (Posey 2021) thus improving access and participation of all students and allowing them flexibility in demonstrating their learning. The main principles of UDL are clarity of learning objectives (what students are expected to achieve), flexibility and options (various routes students can take to accomplish the learning goals), and, accessibility (to the learning experience, particularly to instructional materials) (Temple University 2021). Ralabate (2021) regards the purpose of UDL implementation as the capacitation of learners to ‘assess their own learning needs, monitor their own progress’ and regulate and sustain their interest, effort, and persistence during a learning task.

Adopting UDL framework promotes social justice and encourages teachers to pay attention to barriers that interfere with learning (Purdue University) and ‘to build learning materials and environments that are more flexible’ (Moore 2007: 522). This pursuit of inclusion embraces the needs of all students by minimizing barriers. It also acknowledges that there are many students with and without disabilities who struggle to learn ‘due to elements of course design, teaching, or assessment’ (Temple University 2021). Having such a framework would have provided all students continued access to materials and resources even during completely online teaching and learning.

Adopting this framework has implications for staff development. First, faculty needs to learn how to adapt and clarify curriculum goals and make instruction more accessible. Second, they would learn how to remove barriers to learning and to enable all students to meet their learning goals. Lastly, support staff also needs to learn how to support all students, how to advocate for the needs of marginalized students, and what and when to escalate.

Conclusion

I believe that universities are spaces for debate, dialogue, and knowledge creation. This is the reason that delegates who attended the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s 2020 Disability Online Research and Practice Indaba committed to start these conversations at their institutions. This paper marks the beginnings of such conversations which I intend initiating within my institution. These conversations must start with those in leadership but should include faculty members and students with disabilities. I believe that leadership is critical in changing culture within organizations. If we are to ensure that all students are equal participants, we need bold leadership at various levels of HEIs, particularly at curriculum and instruction level. Adopting UDL is critical in ensuring curriculum access and addressing the fragmented student support. Supporting students with disabilities is everyone’s business in education. The sooner we adopt the principles of UDL, the better the service we will provide to all, thus improving learning outcomes for all students.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.