REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

This section breaks down the concept of reasonable accommodation and suggests approaches that an education institution could use to enable persons with disabilities to fully participate as students or staff and perform to the best of their ability.

General Concept

What is a Reasonable Accommodation?

A reasonable accommodation is any administrative, environmental or procedural changes enabling persons with disabilities to fully participate in education, apply for a job, perform the essential duties of a job, enjoy the benefits and privileges of employment or fully access services and livelihood interventions.

Reasonable accommodation may be provided for persons with disabilities, whether the disability is an existing or an acquired condition, or of a temporary or permanent nature.

How do you determine what requested accommodation is reasonable?

Most accommodations cost little or no money at all. Just effort, consideration, support and creativity.

It will not always be possible to provide an accommodation if it would cause an undue financial or administrative hardship. However, explore other options available keeping effective participation of the individual in mind. Most importantly, consult the individual in question and involve them in the decision process.

Investing in a few costly reasonable accommodations such as (modification of the university premises for accessibility, purchasing assistive technology) could go a long way in supporting efforts on disability inclusion, allowing a university to offer more opportunities to other future students with disabilities.

Consider the following;

What is the nature and cost of the adjustment? Can it be met by the budget available?
Will it enable the individual to perform to his/her best ability or compete at an equal level as others?
How many people could benefit from the adjustment? (e.g. including future students of a university/ future Scholars)
What additional benefits could result from the adjustment for the institution, Scholars Program and Scholar(s) with disabilities?

Common reasonable accommodations in education

Below are a few examples of reasonable accommodations that can be made support students/staff with disabilities in an education institution. This is in no way an exhaustive list of options available but a snapshot to give insight into the needs of different impairments:

For people with physical impairments

Making existing facilities accessible (lecture rooms, washrooms, student residences, common areas such as lunch areas) where possible.
Shifting lectures to accessible rooms.
Flexible learning arrangements (distance learning where possible, telecommute, e-learning, etc.)
Purchasing height-adjustable chairs or desks
Priority for on-campus student residence.

Note:

Due to inaccessibility of public transportation in many countries in Africa, people with physical impairments usually face difficulties using public means such as buses and mini vans to commute. A more convenient option for many is using motorcycles or private taxis that incur extra costs for transport. Providing extra transport facilitation to cover some of these additional costs can count as reasonable accommodation. This could be explored in addition to other measures such as priority for on-campus residence and accessibility transportation options where available.

For people with visual impairments

Note:

Computers have in-built accessibility features such as screen-readers and magnifiers. Provision of a computer may just be enough for some individuals with low vision or partial sight. An alternative to Braille material is electronic/soft/digital copy. Soft copy material (preferably in MS Word (.doc) where possible. Certain screen readers may not easily access .pdf ) can easily be read using text-to-speech software such as JAWS.

For people with hearing and/or speech impairments

Provision of Sign Language Interpreters.
Provision of subtitles and/or captioning for any audio-visual material.
Sign language interpretation, transcription and captioning for video conferencing/ e-learning.
Written information to back-up any audio communications.

Note:

Hearing Impairments are diverse, ranging from hard-of-hearing to complete deafness. Some persons with hearing impairment are not conversant with sign language but may lip-read and speak quite coherently. This may be the case if the impairment occurred later in life after speech and language development. In this instance, written communication, transcription, and provision of a personal assistant to help take notes during meetings/trainings would be a more efficient reasonable accommodation than a sign language interpreter.

For people with learning disabilities

Extra time on exams.
The ability to type written exams.
The ability to apply for extensions on assignments.
Support in organization of classes, study sessions and exams.
The ability to get a copy of lecture notes
Having a designated note-taker for lectures.

Note:

Learning Disabilities are different for every individual. It is important to get to know an individual’s specific learning challenges, and understand which supports they may need. Some people might need many of these supports, but others might just need one.

For people with psychosocial impairments

Extra time on exams
A separate exam area
The ability to apply for extensions on assignments.
Support in organization of classes, study sessions and exams.
A clear emotional support and referral pathway.

Note:

Psychosocial Impairments vary significantly from person to person, and are not always present. It is important to work with individuals with these challenges on an on-going basis to determine which supports they need at a given time.