Mainstreaming a Disability Inclusive University Environment: Lessons Gleaned from a Zimbabwe Case

Purpose: The focus of this study is inclusion of disabled students at a conveniently selected Zimbabwe university. Guided by the principles of disability inclusion as delineated in the Zimbabwe National Disability Policy (2021), the purpose of this study is an assessment of the level of adherence of the institutional initiatives meant to end discrimination, marginalization and exclusion of students with disabilities to the ZNDP. Methodology: The study utilizes a qualitative methodology, through open-ended one-on-one interviews with 7 disabled students, 3 of their lecturers, 4 non-disabled students, the coordinator of the disability resource center, and the university student counsellor. The interviews were preferred because they enable getting to the bottom of the issues pursued through exploring in-depth participants’ experiences and opinions. Thematic analysis of data was employed in extracting meaning from the data. The thematic analysis involved independent generation of themes across the data set by the 2 researchers and a peer debriefer, uncovering subtleties that could have been otherwise overlooked. Findngs: The study recorded glimmers of alignments of the institutional measures with the ZNDP, and also bleak departures to standards set by the ZNDP. These departures acted as functional limitations that restricted the students with disabilities’ full participation in university life thus resulting in disability discrimination, in some case in concert with gender discrimination. The recorded departures were mainly in inadequate resources (mainly in the form of inadequate lecturer competence for the job and inadequate assistive structures and technology), inaccessible infrastructure, negativity, and stigmatization of people with disabilities. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study findings, on top of adding to existing literature, improves practice through proposing a model of building a disability inclusive university environment that has the potential of being a taxonomy that can arrest the challenge of disability exclusion, not only at the studied institution but can be adapted in other university communities.