Essay on access to higher education: the long battle for educational inclusion in Portugal

• Autor(a) principal: Capucha , Luís
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Educação e Políticas em Debate
• Texto Completo: https://seer.ufu.br/index.php/revistaeducaopoliticas/article/view/70000
• topic: Estudantes com Deficiência; Ensino Especial; Ensino Superior; Disabled Students; Special Needs Education; University Education; Estudiantes Discapacitados; Educación Especial; Educación Universitária

A battle for inclusive education has been going on for decades and is far from over. Now, the main, but not exclusive, focus of this battle in Portugal is higher education. Disabled students encounter major barriers both in terms of access and success in Portuguese Universities and Polytechnics. The development of the Welfare State and society has generated, in the last five decades, profound changes in the living conditions of people with disabilities and in the public policies that respond to their rights in Portugal. Despite these advances, problems persist, and new ones appear. The focus of this essay focuses on the bottleneck at the end of secondary education and entry into higher education, despite the fact that all students have completed basic education and almost all of them attended secondary education. In fact, the number of students with special needs has grown, but it is far from desirable. This does not result from the (in)capabilities of the students, but from the lack of preparation in the university structures and professional practices at higher education institutions. The development of measures similar to those that make up the Independent Life Support Model, whose evaluation highlighted not only its effectiveness, but also its dissemination potential, could be the way forward to overcome a substantial part of the barriers that currently exist to the participation in this level of education to which everyone is entitled.