Image: Shelley Christians/UWCA commitment to inclusion means creating spaces where students and staff can speak openly about their experiences, identify barriers and contribute to finding solutions. At the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a recent dialogue with visually impaired students provided such a space, placing their experiences at the centre of a conversation about inclusive teaching and learning.
Titled “Amplifying Voices: Understanding Inclusive Teaching and Learning Experiences of Visually Impaired Students”, the dialogue brought together visually impaired students and university staff to discuss their experiences and consider what more can be done to ensure that teaching, learning and the wider university environment are accessible to all.
The engagement reflects the importance of listening directly to members of the university community when considering how to translate the principle of inclusion into meaningful change. For visually impaired students, this includes being able to access learning materials, participate fully in lectures, navigate the campus and engage with the university environment without unnecessary barriers.
Andiswa Qoboka, an LLM candidate in Labour Law in the Department of Mercantile and Labour Law, shared her experience as a visually impaired student. Qoboka completed her undergraduate studies at UWC and subsequently completed her articles of clerkship at Legal Aid South Africa.
“I needed to be ten steps ahead of everyone else in order to be on the same footing as all my other peers….I must say, when we talk about what inclusive education means for a person with visual impairment, we must remember it's about us getting to sit in the same classroom as the so-called able-bodied. Being taught the same curriculum, writing the same tests, and the barriers that hinder us are not removed,” said Qoboka.
Andiswa Qoboka is an LLM candidate in Labour Law in the Department of Mercantile and Labour Law. Image: Shelley Christians/UWCStudents highlighted several challenges they encounter in their academic journey, including waiting weeks for lecture notes and slides to be sent, difficulty accessing online resources, and the need to plan ahead when navigating parts of campus, such as getting to the main library.
UWC Deputy Registrar, Dr Ahmed Shaikjee, and Administrative Assistant at the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSwD), Craig Loubser, were among the panel members who facilitated the discussion.
Dr Shaikjee said that at universities across the country, there is much more to do as it relates to accessibility and the academic journey of visually impaired students: “Access is what lets a person in. It is support that lets a person finish.”
Loubser said that there are barriers to access that visually impaired students have to overcome daily. “The student cannot adapt the style of learning to suit the lecturer’s teaching. We need to adapt the style of learning to suit the student….Let's all, for a moment, imagine UWC Library only had Braille books. How would that impact students?”
The discussion highlighted that inclusive teaching and learning require consideration of the different ways in which students access information and participate in the academic environment.
Ayabulela Taliwe is a 26-year-old visually impaired student completing a BA in Psychology. He described how he uses technology and recordings to support his learning. “I take my own notes, so it’s easy for me to understand them the way I want. Also, my tablet helps me. In class, I do recordings. First, I ask the lecturer, ‘Am I able to record? Can I record you?’ Most of them do allow that. I struggle to write notes while I'm listening. So, in order for me to get the notes, I have to record so that we can go and do them when I'm alone in my room,” said Taliwe.
Siyanda Kobokana, a CHR Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Historical Studies and a UK-RSA Bilateral Digital Humanities Chair in Culture and Technics Fellow, said the principle of Ubuntu could offer an important lens for considering questions of access and inclusion.
“The culture that unites us as Africans is this idea around Ubuntu. How can we best practice Ubuntu as a principle that says, ‘I wouldn't want this done to me’, or ‘I wouldn't want this done to my child if my child were a student here’? And that for me is a much deeper engagement with this question of culture and access … a way for us to consciously think about the other in ways that transcend the self.”
Andile Jonas, a researcher from the UWC Department of Information Systems, said engagement was constructive: “The panel's senior lecturer and the disability office's administrator were both careful to give the numbers behind the conversation: roughly 25,000 to 27,000 students overall, with around 300 registered for disability support, served by a small, dedicated team. Assistive technologies such as Job Access With Speech (JAWS) and Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) incur ongoing licensing and retraining costs in addition to the initial purchase price. That context doesn't erase the gaps participants described, but it helps explain why the current model leans on responding case by case rather than planning ahead, and points toward resourcing, not just intent, as part of the solution.”
He added: “The ideas raised were practical: build accessibility into registration, timetabling and assessment design from the outset; give lecturers a reliable, updated list each term of which students need what; extend planning and training to tutorials, not just lectures; convert core textbooks well ahead of the semester rather than on request; invest in newer assistive equipment and more conversion staff; audit digital platforms for screen-reader compatibility; and, involve visually impaired students directly in designing and testing the systems built for them.”
The dialogue created an opportunity for the University to hear directly from visually impaired students about their experiences and for staff to engage with the practical realities affecting their academic journey.
Such engagements are important in moving the conversation around inclusion beyond policy and principle towards identifying the changes, support and approaches needed to create a university environment in which all students can participate and succeed.
