Towards Inclusive Universities - 2

TIU so far

Utrecht NL

11.12.2008

Proposal - Aug.2007

• A vision: going beyond what exists in the West, to create something effective beyond: East and South.
• The situation: what had been done, what needed to be done.
• Rationale and justification: why something different is needed.
• Aims, targets and criteria: more universal elements from the essence of good practice
• Enabling systems, flexible, clear and predictable,

TIU’s differences

• ‘Potential that needs opportunities’ (NIHA)
• The fewdisabled university students
• Eastern strategies + Western processes
• Deeper essence –not just superficial ‘copies’
• Experience of experts: disabled students
• Training from needs and practice
• Targets: achievable small steps
• Questioning assumptions, setting standards

First steps

• Implementing ideas, becoming concrete.
• Practical needs: information, communication channels, key points
• Team work: supporting, complementing, sharing responsibilities
• Partner roles and qualities
• Factors for change: Info + Will + Need (Mind-Heart-Gut)

TIU partners

      MKU: Manager. Antakya, Hatay.

      METU: university disability support since 2004

      NIHA: a bridge between TR-NL

      H+S: NL version of what TR needs

      EAIE’snewest SIG: DIW. International contacts, EU experience

      YYU: The most motivated team in Eastern TR.

      EgeU: very recent, disability led

      AysegulAtaman (GaziU) pioneer since 1966.

Member roles

• Vision of project aims
• Team work –skills and understanding
• Criteria matured through challenge of practice: Commitment.
• Effective interaction of partners
• Conditions clearer through needs and requests.
• Own position in the network: connections, systems, resources, own responsibilities, duties and abilities of others

TIU products

• Brochures, Posters, etc. Other: what can raise the visibility of TIU
• TV and media; local and national
• Making contacts in different ways: grassroots upwards…
• Data sources. Report formats
• ‘Turkish students’ for Irma
• Understanding EU conditions and procedures for CSD
• Management: networks, responsibilities, procedures, standards and channels of communication.

Claire at H+S meeting

• Getting to know H+S’swork: what and how
• H+S partnerships and connections
• Effective ways: film, debate, quiz…
• Meeting other NL people
• Language strategies, ‘word deafness’, impact on energy levels.
• Key words for disability discussions

Learning from each other

• Expressing ideas and needs, raising expectations, exchanging practice…
• Hosts who are challenged to understand different needs and ways of working develop broader alternatives.
• All students benefit from clearer, more flexible systems, without assumptions, with feedback.

Some questions

• EU records of disabled students?
• More disabled Erasmus exchange students?
• Targeted work experience opportunities and exchanges of disabled students?
• A register of sending/receiving universities?
• EU ‘HE disability’ projects register?
• XU wants to send disabled students on Erasmus. Is XU ready to receive?

Future activities

   TIU3 –Online forum of university disability specialists (14 countries so far) to get a full range of situations, needs and solutions.

   TIU4 –Developing skills of disabled students (current at different universities)

   TIU5 –Training of trainers and disabled students’ platform (Ankara, NIHA and METU)

   TIU6 –Workshop on common standards (HatayMKU)

   TIU7 –Final dissemination: presentation of outcomes to Turkish Higher Education Council and other relevant authorities. (Ankara) 

Inclusive universities

• How to develop inclusion in a broader range of universities, to include disadvantaged students and facilitate their mobility?
• What strategies work for disabled students studying without formal support systems, without funding or infrastructure?
• How to handle human resistance to change?
• What will we learn once we start looking, that we didn’t think we would find?

Teşekkürler  

Claire Özel,

Engelsiz ODTÜ Koordinatörü