Contents we believe that we should provide a

Contents 1       Executive Summary. 3 2       Introduction. 4 3       Literature review.. 5 4       Methodology.

7 5       Data analysis and recommendation. 9 5. 1        Data analysis. 9 5. 2        Main issues identified. 11 5. 3        Recommendations. 12 5.

4        Third party recommendations. 17 6       Conclusion. 18 7       References. 19 8       Appendices. 20   1         Executive Summary Main objective of our report is to identify an issuein University of Sri Jayewardenepura and to provide recommendations for theissue. As our problem, we selected the university insufficiency of facilitiesfor disabled students within the university premises.

Disabled are one of the vulnerableparty in our society, who needs a special care. They along with their familyface many challenges every day in their life. With that situation, we believethat we should provide a special concern for such students in our university aswell. To gather information about disabled students and tofind whether there are sufficient amount of facilities for them, we did tworesearches, one with the faculties in the university and the other, with thestudents. As per the results of the research, we were able to identify thatthere are no sufficient facilities and the students are disappointed about thesituation.

In order to overcome this issue, we came up with somerecommendations to help them in the way we can. Through our recommendation wewant to bring the attention of management to remove the drawbacks and toincrease the facilities for disabled students within the university. We hopethat our report and its recommendations will cause a change in their lives for theirbetterment.  2          3         Introduction  Within a year thousandsof students enter to the university with lots of hopes. They come here tocontinue their learning, to learn essential skills to pursue a particularcareer to find a better job with a good salary, to meet new friends, to havemore independence, to experience the university life etc.

So each and everystudents that comes to our university, “ University of Sri Jayewardenepura” alsohave the same hope and university too help them to a certain extend toaccomplish their goals. But the problem is allthe students here do not have the ability to get the use of these opportunitieseasily as others. We have some students with different disabilities. Such asphysical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, vision impairments, hearingproblems, mental disabilities, arms or leg handicapped etc. These studentsshould not be discriminated and disadvantaged by the university. Universityneed to ensure some adjustments to facilitates those students.

So our mainconcern through this report is to help those students with disabilities, whocould not make their voice to the society and suffering a lot because of thisproblems. As we see our universityprovides a variety of facilities to students to help their studies. There arequalified lecturers, lecture halls with good facilities, friendly staff, and ahuge library, there are lots of clubs to join, you can sing, dance, there areno. of sports facilities, a gymnasium and many more. But there is a questionwhether all these facilities are arranged in a way, so that disabled studentscan also enjoy those. Without any further discussions the answer will be no. Because lack of consideration was extended on the needs of them when designingthose facilities.

In order to help thisproblem, we first gathered information about the students with disabilities bytalking with them, and also we gathered information about the facilitiesavailable here in our university by providing a questioner to some faculties. By doing all these what we hope is to point out the missing facilitiesavailable and to provide some recommendations to help these students. So theywill get the some opportunities. As all the other students in the university. 4         Literature review To get the base to ourreport we went through some past researches and past paper articles about theissue. When referring to the work of previous researchers.  We first found theresearch done by·        UvKiran, Babasaheb Bhimroo University, Lucknow.

On infrastructure facilities fordifferently abled students. A comparative study of government andNon-Government institutions.                   The primary goal of thatresearch was to identify the differences in infrastructure facilities andstudent’s level of satisfaction. The result show that Non-Governmentinstitutions were providing more infrastructure in comparison to governmentstudents for disable students. According to their research none of theinstitutions have walking aids, internal phones and two-way radio remitterfacilities.

Majority of the Government institutions have very low level 0fsatisfaction regarding the availability of facilities for disable students. Figure? 1www. researchgate. netNext wereferred the,·        Protectionof the rights of person with disabilities. Act no: 28 of 1996.                     Thatact was establish for the establishment of a national council for person with disabilities, for the promotion advancement and protection of rights of persons with disabilitiesin Sri Lanka.

·        Researchon managing the transition to university for disabled students; by Mark Taylor, Mike Baskett and Chris Wren.                 Purpose of that research is toexamine mechanism for managing the transition for school to university fordisabled students. There they have outline a number of areas that need ofstudents with a disability. They recommend that education infrastructure arerequired to make reasonable adjustment for with a disability. Figure Error! No text of specified style in document.? 2www. emeraldinsight. com ·        Articleon the differently abled community of Sri Lanka by Jayani Balasubramanium                     Thereshe has given her review and opinion about developing the facilities fordisabled people in Sri Lanka to create a positive change in the world.

Through all these pastresearches what we found in conclusion is that facilities available fordisabled is lack. And need to be improved. So through our research we aim tohighlight those issues and provide recommendation for those issues, with thehelp of these past researches.  5         Methodology Main aim of our researchis to increase the facilities in our university for disabled students. So thatthey can also achieve a great success it they are given enough support andopportunities. Since disabled people are actually differently abled people, they should also be given enough facilities within the university to improvetheir skills. So they will also get the opportunity and pleasure of enjoying anormal life as all the other students.

We should not look at them as a burden. Insteadwe should encourage them to face their life challenges with courage. There can be differentlytypes of disabilities. Mainly we can categories in to 13 arears such as, 1.     Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)2.

Blind or low vision (BLV)3.     Cognitive disabilities (CD)4.     Deaf or hard of hearings (DHH)5.     Deaf-Blind (DB)6.

Development delays (DD) Early childhoodonly7.     Emotional disabilities 8.     Language or speech impairment (LSI) 9.

Multiple disabilities (MD)10. Other health impairments (OHI)11.  Orthopedic impairment (OI)12. Specific learning disabilities (SLD) 13. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) Belonging to one of thesewould be consider as disabled. The main thing is we should understand thatstudents with disabilities are not different from others.

But they have somespecial needs that need to be addressed carefully. According Jackie Concley(We referred google documents) there are many ways in which you can helpdisabled people. He has mainly highlighted some general rules for helpingdisables. 1.     Treat them as equals  We should also treat these students as equalto other because they are no exceptions.

They also like to have friends, havefun and to engage in university activities as others. So we should nothesitate, and be afraid to make them participated in all the activities. Weshould always encourage them. 2.

Ask before you help  Youshould not always jump in and help those people. Because without knowing theirneed we could make a harm to them than good. So should politely ask whetherthey need any help and especially we should not offer any medical advices tothem without proper knowledge.  3.     Never assume someone does or does not havea disability. Withoutknowing the correct incident we should not call they        disable.

Because with the disabilitiesthey could act and feel different. Those kinds of behaviors can have an adverseeffect on them. 4.     Do not stare at the disabled  We not should just stare at the disabledstudents. So then they will feel embarrassed. They also live a life as others. Simply look at them as the way you look at others.

5.     Respects and understand confidentially When interacting with such people, we shouldbe respectful in both act and words. And we should always protect theirprivacy.

All these rules areapplied when dealing with such students. In general when it comes to auniversity other than all these we should ensure some special facilities forthem to help their studies. According to our research some students tend todrop university due to lack of facilities, which is not a good sign anyway.

Unless universities talksnecessary steps to improve facilities the rate of disable students dropping outthe university will increase drastically. Universities welcoming theapplication of disable students also make them responsible for adjusting. Necessary facilities to access the course. If you cannot facilitate you shouldnot admit them. If you admit you should fulfill their needs.  6         Data analysis andrecommendation  6. 1      Data analysis Number of disables andavailable facilities in each faculty To find the number ofdisable students in each faculty and how they treat them and to find theavailable special facilities, we did a small research by providing a questionerto each faculty.

Given below are the results. 1.     Faculty of Humanities and SocialScience   (refer annexure 01)·        There are about 30 disabled students outof which 5 have bearing aids. ·        One important issue we got to know is thatthose five students are learning the lecture through the gestures of thelecture.

And because of using microphones they could not see the movements ofthe lips of lecturer. And they tend drop lectures because of this issue. ·        No special arrangement have being taken tohelp those students, even though they have reported the issue to the department2.

Facultyof Medical Sciences·        As per the gathered information theycurrently don’t educate any disabled students·        But they have made necessary arrangementsand facilities to get them join with the faculty. 3.     Faculty of Management Studies andCommerce (refer annexure 03)·        According to their information provided theycurrently educate 02 disabled students·        They said that they are satisfied with theavailable facilities and also mentioned that they don’t think lack offacilities as a barrier for their studies4.

Faculty of Applied Science (refer annexure 02)·        This also have no disabled studentscurrently·        And they are not satisfied with theavailable facilities and also consider it as a barrier to peruse their goals, and is willing to increase the facilitiesHere we havegraphed the results of the research as follows    Main issues identified Through the wholeresearch, we could identify some major issues faced by disable as follows. 1.     Lack of elevatorsThereis only four or five elevators for the entire university. There is a difficultyfor them to reach the lectures hall, at least there must be sloped stair case totake wheel chairs easily. Because a small stair case can be a huge barrier forthem. 2.     Transportation problems Thereis a problem for them to travel from one place to another, for that they alwaysneed a help from another student. So it is better to have a special kind oftransportation system if possible to help them.

3.     Lack of human supportForsome students they always need a support person. Always their friend cannotfulfill this need. There should be some person at special places like canteen, library, administrative building to help them to reach their needs. 4.     Accommodation problemsThesestudents should be provided with special accommodation facilities. Such asspecial hostel rooms in ground floor with attached bathrooms.

5.     Lack of sanitary facilityThereis only one washroom for the disable in the entire university. While improvingthe facilities for other students, we think that their facilities should alsobe improved.  6.     Library facilitiesOneissue in the library is that, there is no elevator for the library.

They alsohave an issue to access the books they want. It is good to have a libraryassistance to help the students to find the book they want. What they requestis to increase the technology in a way to support them, and increase the numberof braille books, apply voice recognition software etc. 7.     Lack of counseling facilitiesDisabledmeans not only physical disabilities, mental disorders can also be taken intothis category. So there must be a proper counselling service specially designedfor the needs of disabled students.

Then they can share their ideas with themwithout hesitating.   6. 2      Recommendations 1)     Staircase with a slope –         Differently abledstudents such as students with leg handicapped and students who are using wheelchairs cannot use usual staircases. They want staircases with a slope. Manypublic and private companies, supermarkets, banks and hospitals are usingstaircases with a slope.-         When considerabout our university, we cannot see such kind of staircases.

So, it is usefulthat, building such kind of staircases in our university. –         For an example, this is the picture of faculty of Humanities and Social Science. In here thereis no staircase with a slope.

So, students who are using wheelchairs cannot gothat faculty.          –         This is thepicture of Central Hospital, Maradana. In that hospital, we can see that kindof staircase, specially built for patients using wheelchairs.            2)     Walking paths for Blind students  –         According to thedata obtained from the Blind Students’ Association of University of Sri Jayewardenepura, there are 19 blinds students in our university.-         For that students, there should be special walking paths called ‘ Tactile Paving’.-         “ Tactile Paving’is a system of textured ground surface indicator found on footpaths, stairs andtrain station platforms to assist pedestrians who are visually impaired.”(Wikipedia)-         When considerabout our university, there is on such kind of walking paths for blindstudents.

So, building such kind of walking paths are very convenient for blindstudents.-         This is a pictureof tactile paving.          3)     Elevator facilities –         It is must to haveelevator facilities in the university buildings even for differently abledstudents. But, some buildings such as Second building of Soratha building, Administration building and Library do not have any elevator facilities.

–         So, leg handicappedstudents and students using wheelchairs cannot participate for the lectures inthe first, second and third floor lecture rooms in the second building ofSoratha building and also if they wanted to go for upper floors in theAdministration building for some reason, there was no way to go.-         Thus, it ispossible to build elevators in such buildings.  4)     Disable Student Allowance (DSA) –         It is useful togrant a Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) for differently abled students.-         According to theUniversity of Cambridge Disabled Students’ Allowances can help with the costof, o   Specialist equipment for an example a computer if anyperson need one because of his/her disabilityo   Non-medical helperso   Extra travel expense because of his/her disabilityo   Other disability-related costs of studying-         Our universityshould establish a reasonable adjustments fund which will help support the costof the following Non-Medical Help(NMH) tasks such as,·        Note takers·        Study assistants·        Proof reading·        Specialist studyskills·        Specialist mentoring-         This is a specialfacility available in the University of Cambridge. So, if our universityprovided this kind of allowance, it would be a really help for differentlyabled students. 5)     Counselling facilities –         “ Counsellingpsychology is a psychological specialty that encompasses research and appliedwork in several broad domains” (Wikipedia)-         Our university hasa counselling center.

But, our recommendation is, make special counsellingfacilities for differently abled students.-         Sometimes, that students are mentally depressedbecause of their disability. So, if our university provided special counsellingfacility to that students, it would be very serviceable.            6.

3      Third partyrecommendations Other than our recommendations, we thought of gettingrecommendations from students and university staff. Following are some recommendations obtained fromuniversity staff. Ø  Common facilities, class room facilities, libraryfacilities, washroom facilities, canteen facilities, common rest roomfacilities and transport facilities should be improved in the university fordifferently abled students.(Refer Annexures) Following the recommendations obtained from thestudents. (Refer Annexures 04-14)Ø  Should give extra financial facilitiesØ  Should give more attention for themØ  Should give all the medical facilities in free ofcharge for examples wheelchairs, spectacles and medicinesØ  Add more elevators because the central elevator is notfunctioning to every lecture room in the Soratha buildingØ  Add more lecture facilities for themØ   Provide aspecial canteen for themØ  Provide special sanitary facilitiesØ  Provide medical facilities to examine them ones in amonth and for emergency casesØ  Aware other students the way to deal with them 7         Conclusion  This report is intended to help the students withdifferent disabilities to face their challenges. Since limited attention isextended to help those students, we through this report hope to make a noise tobring the management attention to help disabled students. We basically did tworesearches, one with the faculties of Universities of Sri Jayewardenepura, andthe other one with the students in the university.

As per the research welearnt that a very low level of facilities and services are rendered to thestudents with disabilities. The level of satisfaction of the disabled studentsabout the facilities is reducing drastically. Many of the students have droppeddown university because of lack of facilities. Through our research we mainlyidentified transportation problems, accommodation problems, difficulties toreach the library, sanitary problems, lack of human support, and lack ofequipment as main issues of them. So from our report we recommend somefacilities that could be implemented in our university to help the disabledstudents. Some of our recommendations are to make stair cases with slopes, increase the no of elevators, and have a special fund to help, adopt userfriendly technologies, build barrier free environments, provide financial helpto buy equipments, to have signal boards for disabled students, to provide ahuman assistant etc.

This is our genuine effort to help the students withdisabilities, because it brought tears to our eyes while listening to theirstories. Our only hope is to make this successful and to bring managementattention to help those students. 8         References  https://www. unr. edu/nevada-today/news/2017/faces-of-the-pack-sri-lanka-startuphttp://www. ft. lk/article/518805/Exclusion-through-inclusivity:-The-differently-abled-community-of-Sri-Lankahttps://www. researchgate. net/publication/262380294_Infrastructural_Facilities_for_Differently_Abled_Students_-_A_Comparative_Study_of_Government_and_Non-Government_Institutionshttp://srilankalaw. lk/Volume-VI/protection-of-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-act. html 9         Appendices