Towards Equality in Supporting Disabled Students : Practice at University of Westminster

ショウガイシャ　サベツ　カイショウホウ　ノ　ジツゲン　ト　ビョウドウ　ナ　ショウガイ　ガクセイ　シエン　ヲ　メザシテ　エイコク　ウェストミンスター　ダイガク　ノ　トリクミ　ヲ　トオシテ

スワ, エリコ

Suwa, Eriko

望月, 直人

モチヅキ, ナオト

Mochizuki, Naoto

吉田, 裕子

ヨシダ, ユウコ

Yoshida, Yuko

中野, 聡子

ナカノ, サトコ

Nakano, Satoko

楠, 敬太

クスノキ, ケイタ

Kusunoki, Keita

オオサカ　ダイガク　ゼンガク　キョウイク　スイシン　キコウ

Center For Education In Liberal Arts And Sciences

高等教育

障害者差別解消法

合理的配慮

平等

Disabled Students

Higher Education

Discrimination Act Reasonable Accommodation

Equality

In 2016, ‘the Law to Eliminate Discrimination against People with Disabilities’ was enacted in Japan.Now, the government agencies, including the public universities, are required to provide guidelines and ‘reasonable accommodations’ to remove social barriers for such individuals. However, the law does not clearly define what exactly constitutes reasonable accommodation. Moreover, ambiguous definition of a ‘disabled person’ confuses the applicants. Since the law itself was formulated based on what is followed in western countries with advanced support systems, we will able to learn from the practices of these countries. This paper reported the practice of University of Westminster in the U.K., which the first author visited for an interview, and explored how they decided on a strategy to provide support for disabled students and how they put the strategy into play. By observing their practice, we attempted to provide a helpful perspective for Japanese universities. It indicated the need to create decision-rules and systems for fair accommodations at the earliest. Even though it is important to discuss the means of practical support and services for disabled students, they should be built on a foundation of these rules and system. Thus, we need to focus more on the accommodation process, in addition to the accommodation itself. New systems and rules in our university are being designed with these points in mind, and they have been introduced in this paper as well.

望月, 直人

吉田, 裕子

中野, 聡子

楠, 敬太