The Accessibility of Assistive Technology for Students with Disabilities in Higher Learning Institutions: A case of the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania

The paper reports the findings of an investigation into the accessibility of assistive technology (AT) used by students with disabilities (SWD) in higher learning institutions (HLIs) in Tanzania. The descriptive study used a cross-section design. The study involved a total of 173 participants; 18 management officials, 35 trainers, and 120 students, including 33 SWD including students with visual impairment (ten), five students with low vision, seven students with physical disabilities, three students with albinism, seven students with hearing impairment, and one student with speech impairment. The study revealed the presence of AT distributed to SWD accordingly. The challenges included inadequate and deficiencies in some of the AT devices, shortages of staff with knowledge and skills to do maintenance, difficulties in adopting new AT, the high cost of AT devices, inadequate training, and a shortage of AT training opportunities among staff and SWD. The study suggests the allocation of enough budgets to purchase more AT, empower, extend and build the internal industries to manufacture AT devices and employ more AT trainers and internal experts for maintenance and repair of the AT that will ensure the constant availability of fully functional AT devices.