University education of students with disabilities with the example of Pope John Paul II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska

Abstract

Interest in the problem of the participation of people with disabilities in public, social, professional and, in particular, educational life has increased over the past few years both worldwide and in Poland. The literature on the subject includes numerous publications concerning the education of children and youth with disabilities. This is not surprising since education at the primary as well as secondary school level is obligatory in Poland. It is also a condition for taking up higher education. The functioning of students with disabilities in higher education institutions is not so widely commented on in the literature. According to the data by the Central Statistical Office (GUS), the number of university students with disabilities amounted to 22,988 in 2007, and it increased to 31,613 by 2012. However, there has been a decline in the number of university students with disabilities since 2013. There were 28,940 university students with disabilities in 2013, while only 25,121 strived to receive third-level education in 2016, which constituted 1.86% of the total number of students in Poland. The fact that only 4.6% of people with disabilities had third-level education in 2002 is also worth noting. Since 2006, the number of students with disabilities at Pope John Paul II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska has maintained a relatively permanent level of 50 people, representing 1.7% of the total number of students at the school. The objective of the study was to define the specificity of the functioning of the students with disabilities at Pope John Paul II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska in the context of educational conditions offered to them by the school. The findings show that students with disabilities point to their difficult individual situation rather than to the conditions provided by the university as the source of their difficulties in studying.