University and inclusion of disabled people

Abstract

Access to education is a fundamental right that makes possible the individuals' personal and social development. Therefore, the access to people, regardless of their condition, must be permitted. The university has the mission of higher formation that contributes the highest of the culture for the qualified performance in the activities of the society, not only preparing for the practice of professions, but that itself it is a plural stage of knowledge and culture, open to the diversity of the people that converge there. The educative inclusion of disabled people in the university is a right and an opportunity for their development. It requires adaptations in its physical environment, attitudes, forms of communication, support services, regulations, curricular structures and pedagogical structures, among others; that permit access, continuity, and graduation. The inclusion of disabled people in the university is a new fact that barely starts to being recognized and attended to by some higher education institutions in our country. It represents a challenge for the university, that involves transforming rigid structures, abandoning the selective concept of the fittest, and building the alternatives to “an education for all”, to respond in an appropriate way to the new dynamics of social development.