Inclusion of students with disabilities in Brazilian tertiary Education

Abstract

Abstract In 2016, Brazil approved Law nº 13,409, determining quotas for individuals with disabilities in post-secondary non-tertiary and tertiary education courses of federal educational institutions. Since 1995, National Institute for Educational Studies and Surveys/Ministry of Education (Inep/MEC) has collected data on university courses and student enrollment with the Higher Education Census. Since 2009, this census lists and individually identifies with a code generated by Inep all students enrolled in Higher Education courses, with various information, including whether they have or not any disabilities. Few studies on students with disabilities in tertiary education have been conducted exploring this extensive database. The current study outlines a profile of students with disabilities who joined the system from 2009 to 2019, last year when it was possible to obtain the information. Due to the Brazilian General Data Protection Law, Inep discontinued the publication of microdata per student, which allowed the tabulations presented here. Not only was this done, but the microdata used in this text was also removed from the page. The students with disability showed a different profile when compared to other students; for example, with respect to the distribution by gender, age and choice of course/area. Obviously, institutions that offer some type of assistive technology and/or technical help seem to attract more students with disability. The largest number of students with disability present physical disabilities, followed by vision-impairment, both increasing in time. The total contingent of students with disability more than doubled in the period under scrutiny, with an average growth rate of 9.0% p.y., but percentage of students with disability in Higher Education is still smaller when compared to the total number of students. The growth trend shows that the inclusion process in tertiary education is still beginning.