Able to study? Reasonable accommodation at flemish universities

Abstract

Across Flemish universities, students with disabilities continue to make up a minority of the student population. Yet Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘CRPD’) enshrines the right to inclusive education and prohibits any discrimination on the basis of disability in the implementation of this right. These rights indubitably also apply in a setting of postsecondary education, as is made unequivocally clear by the Article’s requirement of an inclusive education system ‘at all levels’ and its paragraph 5. Equal access to higher education for persons with disabilities is crucial given its role as a portal to the enjoyment of other human rights. In our contribution we consider how one crucial aspect of this right is implemented, i.e. the right to reasonable accommodations. Based on university regulations and interviews with a number of people involved in the practical implementation of reasonable accommodations, we assess whether the law and practice at Flemish universities are in conformity with the CRPD standards. While we found that considerable attention is paid to the role of the environment and the context of individual students, we also identified a number of ‘disability pitfalls’ in the current Flemish practice that might also be present in other jurisdictions.