The impact of Covid-19 on students with disabilities' access to education in South Africa

Headnote

ABSTRACT

The paper used Critical Disability Theory to unpack the impact of Covid-19 on students with disabilities' learning in South African higher education. Data were collected by analysing and synthesising South African and international literature available in Google Scholar, ProQuest, books, journal articles and online resources. The finding was that students with disabilities were excluded in their learning before Covid-19, and the pandemic only exacerbated their exclusion. It was proposed that incorporating the principles of the Universal Design for Learning into the teaching practice, and training academic staff on its implementation, might be an effective intervention to enable inclusion; not only of students with disabilities, but also all diverse students in the South African higher education context, and in Africa at large. In addition, extensive consultation on students with disabilities' lived experience can assist in their inclusion, as they know what they need in terms of learning. Also, a 'new normal', as resulting from the response to Covid-19, was presented and how it can be of benefit to students with disabilities' learning

Keywords: Covid-19, Critical Disability Studies, Higher education, Learning, South Africa, Students with disabilities.

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic had far-reaching effects on education systems across the world, and specifically, South African higher education (USAF, 2020). Its effects on teaching and learning in higher education have been rendered quite visible in South Africa, which recorded the highest Covid-19 related cases in Africa (Africa Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), 2020).The effects of the pandemic are exacerbated for students with disabilities, who have always experienced challenges of exclusion in the pre-Covid-19 world. This paper examines and presents the impact of the pandemic on students with disabilities' learning, which is often under-explored in analytical research on Covid-19related challenges. The overarching argument is that while Covid19 and the concomitant approaches to mitigate its effects have taken a toll on various sectors of society and education systems, the impact has been far-reaching for students with disabilities. This is precisely because of students with disabilities' unique learning skills and requirements, which are often missed in generalised analyses of the visible effects of the pandemic on education systems. Similar to other periods of significant disruption, Covid19 presents a critical basis upon which opportunities for imagining and thinking about ways of...