Eva Ménard is focused. The student, in the first year of her higher technical degree in services and services in the health and social sector in Rouen, is always among the best in her class. The young woman focuses all her attention on her teacher’s face; No second of inattention is possible for him to follow the lesson. Téa, 2 years old, Australian shepherd, takes care of the 20-year-old student. In case of imminent danger, in case of an audible alarm, the assistance dog’s mission is to alert its deaf mistress. Eva takes notes by reading lips.
If by chance a teacher teaches his lesson while wandering around the classroom, “It is difficult to read his words”, the student explains in a polite euphemism. Like Eva, in France there are 59,000 students with a recognized disability (ESH), that is, 2% of the student population. The country has 6.8 million people with disabilities according to the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics. Young people with disabilities who manage to reach higher education “They are the survivors of the school system, which keeps these students in class until they are 16 years old. Then, once they reach the age of compulsory education, they are expelled.”estimates Bénédicte Kail, national family education advisor of the APF France Handicap association.
The law of February 11, 2005 “on equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of people with disabilities,” known as the “disabilities” law, was enacted under the Raffarin government. Commits higher education establishments to provide training to students with disabilities “implementing the necessary adjustments to their situation in the organization, advancement and support of their studies.”
Personalized adaptation requirement
In theory, each school, each university, has a specific service but, almost twenty years after the law was passed, the provisions are uneven, sometimes non-existent. However, the 72 French universities are well equipped with a student health service and a disability mission: 83% of those registered with the ESH. They first choose the sectors of literature, languages and human sciences, then science and finally law, economics-management and economic and social administration.
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