Hon Chairperson, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa declares that everyone has the right to basic and further education. Despite the declaration and concerns that education should be accorded to all, access for the disabled or for people living with disabilities is still a challenge in our country. That is why today I will speak on access to education for people living with disabilities.
We normally understand access to education to be the accessibility of education to any student, including access to appropriate educational institutions, materials and personnel. For disabled people, however, access is more than that. Access for them has more to do with the characteristics of available facilities, programmes and services that allow these to be entered or used by individuals despite visual, hearing, mobility and other impairments.
This is because disability is a condition of being unable to perform as a consequence of physical or mental unfitness. Therefore, this is more about removing obstacles and barriers so that people with disabilities are able to perform.
The Soudien report noted the following: As far as disability is concerned, there seems to be a general recognition that there has been limited progress made in addressing the needs of the disabled, both in terms of the physical infrastructure, as well as educational support structures.
The lack of access to higher education for disabled people is indicated by the fact that in 2007 there were only 4 325 disabled students in higher education that were recorded. This figure represents only 0,6% of the total head-count of the enrolment of students for higher education.
When one looks at the statistics for 2009, there was a very minimal growth in that number: only 347, which meant that it moved up to 4 672 students with disabilities who had access to the higher education of our country from 4 325. This is an area of concern. However, we are very proud to say that with the current Minister and with Higher Education and Training as a Ministry on its own, we hope and believe that these are some of the issues that are going to be addressed and looked at so that we can see more people with disabilities having access to higher education, as we expect them to.
On top of this, Minister, as has been mentioned by the previous speakers here, I think it is important to note that no matter what we do, we will never succeed as the Department of Higher Education and Training if we don't involve or work together with the Department of Basic Education. This is because we can't really wait for learners to have access to higher education institutions.
What is happening at the basic education level? We think that is what we need to look at. I will just give an example. There is a community for the disabled here in Cape Town that has just come to the portfolio committee to air their views and complaints about where they are at the schooling level.
They said they were running short of educators who are well trained to teach disabled learners. There was also an example of deaf schools. So, really, Minister, if we don't look at what is happening at the school level, we will always be faced with the problem of people with disabilities experiencing difficulties in having access to higher education, as is the case now.
As a country, I think we have to note that we have undergone a significant process of transformation, especially in higher education. At the centre of this transformation process that we are talking about is the goal of increasing access for the most disadvantaged groups in our society, including students with disabilities. It is disheartening, though, to note that there is still a lack of commitment by some of the higher education institutions to ensure that the right environment for learning for students with disabilities is being provided. Another breakthrough that our government has achieved was to make sure that people with disabilities do get access to higher education institutions. When we look at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, everybody can apply for it. It is a great achievement that there is a portion that is specifically allocated to people with disabilities within NSFAS.
When one looks at the annual report for 2009-10 at NSFAS, it is reported that there has been a low uptake of special funding by disabled students. This is caused by the lack of advocacy. One would find that most of the students were not aware that they could specifically apply for such funding for them to have access to higher education institutions. However, I think we need to commend the government for doing this to show that they are taking care of people living with disabilities.
Again, when we look at the Soudien report, we note that there is still discrimination taking place when one goes to institutions of higher learning. The infrastructure is not yet up to standard to accommodate some of these learners. Here is one example: There is a university where students had to sit for more than three weeks without going to classes just because there were no ramps for wheelchairs for them to go and attend those classes. I think this is one of the things you need to look at, Minister, to make sure that our students who are disabled have access in this form.
Another thing that is lacking in some of the universities is that even residences are not built in a manner that can accommodate such students. We find that due to that, a small number of students have access to universities.
We also need our universities to have sensitivity towards learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Braille needs to be used. We need to see these things happening in our institutions. So this is a challenge to all universities to provide all these adequate systems to support the teaching and learning of students with disabilities and to make sure that teaching methods do take this into consideration.
This would require a budget, and we need to commit to this budget for the purpose of ensuring access for these students. By so doing, we will be ensuring that people with disabilities feel they are part of the community in our country and that they will even have access to the labour market and be able to contribute to the economy of the country.
Minister, we know the passion that you have. I think it would be proper for me to highlight this. The Minister that we have is very passionate, especially about the skilling of people. When we talk of the skilling of people, we are not leaving ... [Interjections.] Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]