Abstract
Abstract
 The concept of inclusion has its origin from special education, which was recently branded by UNESCO as Education for All (EFA). However, looking at it beyond basic education, inclusive higher education is an area that recently got attention even among the developed countries. This is seen as the incorporation of students with different disabilities into various of academic disciplines of their choice in higher education. Similarly, this is expected to come along with policies, practices, and programmes that will govern the flexibility, facilities, and resources that would enable this category of students to complete their studies along with non-disabled peers and take pride in their identity. Consequently, the intention of this paper is to explore the trends and practices of Nigerian higher education system in an effort to ensure inclusive higher education. In order to achieve the stated objectives, this study employed document and content analysis to obtain data and other relevant information from both the macro and micro levels. Accordingly, one of the major findings of this study shows that there was no clear policy in the Nigerian higher education system for inclusive education. However, higher educational institutions were discovered to give a few privileges specifically on entry requirements and provide a few outdated facilities to help this category of students. As a result, this paper strongly recommends immediate policy borrowing and contextualisation for inclusive higher education policies from countries that enacted and implemented such policies with positive outcomes.
Highlights
D has come up with policies and strategies that will help students with special needs in education and other sectors and their parents receive some support from the government to maintain the needs of the children (The National Archives, 2014)
In Italy, protection of the general rights of people with special educational needs, especially in higher education, is No 104 of 1992 where universities are expected to have a body that will oversee all matters concerning disability which includes the students, lecturers, non-academic staff, building structure, arrangement of examinations to cater for the needs of these students with special educational needs, and providing interpreters for sign language (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2016)
Though many critics accused the government of blending students with special needs in the mainstream, recently more programmes and policies have been put in place which geared towards betterment of the students with special educational needs where some teachers received special training in various academic areas including mathematics (Hjorne, 2015)
Summary
Special education focuses on providing and sustaining teaching and learning materials and facilities that will enable people with special needs to have access to education like others. Universities are expected to make policies that will guarantee ‘access to higher education for students with disabilities’ by setting procedures to ensure inclusive higher education (Morina, Perera, & Melero, 2019) These and other policies have helped in increasing the number of people with special needs that register in the universities in the country (Bell, Devecchi, Guckin, & Shevlin, 2017). In Italy, protection of the general rights of people with special educational needs, especially in higher education, is No 104 of 1992 where universities are expected to have a body that will oversee all matters concerning disability which includes the students, lecturers, non-academic staff, building structure, arrangement of examinations to cater for the needs of these students with special educational needs (allowing blind students to type their answers and use braille to draft notes), and providing interpreters for sign language (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2016). There are special packages of financial assistance for students with special educational needs
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