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Tuesday, 14 May 2013

University of California Agrees to Make Study Material More Accessible for Disabled

The University of California, Berkeley, has signed an out-of-court  settlement with the Disability Rights Advocates to make study material more accessible for students with visual and learning disabilities. 

The settlement comes in the wake of complaints brought forward by three disabled students against the university. The disabilities included blindness, paralysis and dyslexia, which required special software for the students to help them in their research work

The settlement details include providing the students with more study material in alternative format, extra time to submit assignments and more staff to help.

This pact is not legally binding as the agreement was signed out of court.

"It's very well-written and the issues that it identifies have been thematically recurrent issues at a lot of universities and through lower-level complaints through the Office for Civil Rights out of the Department of Education - so, as a model, it is significant and people should pay attention to it," said L. Scott Lissner, president of the national Association on Higher Education and Disability and ADA coordinator at Ohio State University, reports insidehighered.com.

This settlement is a result of a one year negotiation between the university and the disability rights advocates representing the three students. Two of these students, Brandon King  and Tabitha A. Mancini, needed  material in screen reading format and David Jaulus, who is wheelchair bound and visually disabled, needed material in Braille and other help.

"We live in the age of information," said Gibor Basri, UC Berkeley vice chancellor for equity and inclusion, according to KTVU.com

"It is critical that students with print disabilities be able to take the same advantage of academic and employment opportunities as all Berkeley students," Basri added. 

Some of the measures to be undertaken by the university include adopting new technology to make study material accessible in digital format . Students can now request for specific reading material to be converted in accessible digital format, which includes digital text , large-print publications or Braille.

The pact also requires the professors at the university to give reading material well in advance to enable students to get alternative material in the desired format.


Source : University Herald , 13th May 2013

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