Upon receiving its first incoming class under the PCD Quota Law (person with disabilities), Unicamp, through the Teaching and Learning Support Space (EA2), prepares a series of activities with the aim of reflecting on accessibility.
Between March 10th and 13th, during the Accessibility Week, EA2, linked to the Pro-Rectory of Undergraduate Studies (PRG), will debate, with professors, course coordinators and unit directors, issues such as the institutional structure of accessibility; experiences in the development of these structures; inclusive methodologies; and the physical and attitudinal barriers that need to be overcome so that the University offers a fully inclusive, equitable and welcoming space.
Unicamp currently has around 160 students with disabilities enrolled in undergraduate courses, of which 120 receive assistance from the Specialized Educational Assistance Program for Students with Disabilities (PAEE). However, these numbers are expected to increase in 2025, with the arrival of more than 70 undergraduate students with disabilities – 30 of whom entered Unicamp through the quota law. All students will be able to apply to join the PAEE.
“The events scheduled for the week will play a fundamental role in the exchange of experiences on the ethical, political and practical aspects of the inclusion of people with disabilities in higher education,” said the Pro-Rector of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Ivan Toro.
“Affective accessibility thus emerges as an essential starting point for promoting true inclusion within public universities, being indispensable to ensure that all students, with or without disabilities, feel respected and integrated into the academic context,” he added.
EA2 coordinator, Professor Arnaldo Pinto Júnior, stated that the University's greatest challenge at this time is to raise awareness in the community and introduce educational cultures that effectively encompass perspectives of inclusion into the educational system. According to the coordinator, this is a collective task that needs to involve professors, staff and students.
The EA2 coordination advisor, professor Sílvio Roberto Consonni, said that this awareness-raising work has been carried out through discussions at events and the development of practices with the Executive Board of Student Support and Retention (Deape), the Human Rights Board (DeDH), the Campus City Hall and the Accessibility Laboratory (Labaces) of the Unicamp Library System (SBU).
For teachers, this training process involving the community can even generate adjustments to the curriculum.
“The way we worked with knowledge on a daily basis in the 1980s and 90s was one thing. The way students who are arriving now, at 17, 18, 19 years old, are doing it is different,” says Professor Pinto Júnior. “They read the world differently and relate to knowledge differently. It’s not about changing the curriculum. That’s not it. We don’t need to take away what we have. But we need to introduce new things.”
Inclusion mechanisms
Consonni believes that the goals from now on are to improve inclusion mechanisms, because the right to education is already guaranteed by law.
“It is important to highlight that the Brazilian Inclusion Law of 2015 provides for the right to education for people with disabilities. Therefore, we, as an educational institution, have the duty to guarantee the development of skills and talents of all people, with or without disabilities,” he argued.
No taboo
According to professor Sônia Caldas Pessoa, from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) – who will participate in debates and lectures and who will teach a course at Unicamp's Accessibility Week –, the PCD agenda must be addressed and faced by universities without impediments.
“This is an issue that should be addressed without taboos. We need to talk about this subject, sincerely, naturally. We need to take a careful look to understand both the potential of people with disabilities and our weaknesses and, from these everyday tensions, understand how we can learn to deal better with this issue,” he teaches.
Caldas says that the course Inclusive Methodologies for People with Disabilities in Higher Education aims to work on the theme of methodology based on pedagogical practices arising from experiences developed in various instances of the University. The professor says that the practices presented in the course were developed together with people with disabilities.
The UFMG professor will also give a lecture entitled “Affective accessibility: discourses, experiences, institutional structures, hospitality and attitudinal barriers”.
“Affective accessibility encompasses a set of behaviors, attitudes, decisions, and ways of being in the world to welcome people with disabilities who are living with us and who need to be looked at with care, ethics, and affection,” he said. “Disabilities are numerous and multiple, and we need to be aware of the particularities of each one of them.”
For Caldas, the challenges are still enormous. The professor points out that Brazilian universities, in general, were founded a long time ago and that many of them still need physical adaptations – such as furniture, ramps, elevators that are inclusive for deaf and blind people, in other words, a structure that guarantees mobility.
“There is, however, another major challenge, which lies in the discursive field, since we reproduce discourses on a daily basis that may have prejudiced, pejorative connotations, and which may cause various social harms to people with disabilities”, warns Caldas.
“Therefore, we also need to work discursively and understand that being a person with a disability does not mean being less, being inferior or not being fit.”
