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Co-Design for Inclusion in Software Development Design

The Supports and Barriers to Facilities at the University of Mauritius

  • Exclusion

Who does this case study involve?

Students at the University of Mauritius

The case

Students with disabilities typically have a much lower retention rate in universities, and the principal reason for this is that the university staff (in all departments) are inadvertently designing institutional and educational barriers that are challenging for all students, but are compounded for students with disabilities. In the context of institutional barriers that the students encounter, these can include things such as: having buildings or rooms that are inaccessible to people with mobility issues; lacking specialist software for students with sight and dyslexic disabilities; and not creating support group structures for students with disabilities. In the context of the educational experience that the students encounter, these educational barriers are created when educators are doing things such as: developing poorly organized educational materials and learning environments; producing multimedia that is uncaptioned or doesn’t have subtitles; creating educational materials that cannot be read by a screen reader or accessed without a mouse. 

 

The University of Mauritius wanted to find out some of the sources of exclusion that exist within their institution (both at an institutional level and at an educational level), and they did so by developing an online, self-administered survey that asked students two key questions:

  1. Which facilities have insufficient support for students with disabilities?
  2. Are the students aware of the existing supporting facilities that are currently provided?

To explore this issue, the university sent this survey to 500 students (which is 4% of the overall student population), and they obtained 122 responses (which is a 24.4% response rate). 

Findings

The findings of the survey were mixed, with the library facilities, sports and recreational facilities, and departmental facilities scoring low on the accessibility scale, but the IT facilities scoring much better. Students did recognize a number of accommodations that are currently being made, including ensuring that students with mobility issues are scheduled in classrooms that are easily accessible, and the creation of bespoke exam papers (including using a large font, changing the colour layout, and even producing a braille-based papers). The majority of students embraced the wider use of Blended Learning practices by the university, citing the flexibility it engenders, however some students with disabilities felt that there was a potential for ghettoization of the students with mobilities issues, where they would miss out of the “real” university experience if they were relegated to the online alternative. In terms of the students’ awareness of the institutional approaches that the university was undertaking to accommodate a wider range of students, almost two-thirds of the students (65.6%) were unaware the significant financial investments in the physical environment of the university to make it more accessible, and were unaware of the university disability advisors that they can contact to discuss their requirements and problems. Crucially this research indicates that it is not only important to provide a range of accommodations for students with disabilities, but it is as important to advertise and promote these resources, to ensure that everyone who can benefit from these resources, actually do benefit from them. Additionally, the students all agreed that it was essential that the university provide a service for students with disabilities to report any barriers to their educational experience.

References

Singh, U., Pudaruth, S. and Gunputh, R. (2017) “Forgotten, excluded or included? Students with disabilities: A case study at the University of Mauritius”. African Journal of Disability, 6(1), pp.1-12.

The Supports and Barriers to Facilities at the University of Mauritius
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