Interview: Assistant co-ordinator of UKZN Disability Unit Office

What type of schooling background do the disabled students come from?

When disabled students enter school they would normally go a special school. These schools don’t offer subjects that would allow them to be employed. They are not able to apply for jobs such as engineering because they don’t study subjects such as physical science and biology, etc. The disabled students are restricted to the type of job that they can apply for in Universities. How ever they can apply for jobs in the Humanities Department.

What is the major percentage of disabled students?

Majority of disabled students are the visually impaired students. There are University does not accept Deaf students because the University does not have facilities to help them. They do however accept other disabilities.

Are the any organizations that you know of that represent disabled people?

She has no knowledge of organizations that represent disabled people.

Are these students sponsored?

The Department of Labour is the main source of bursaries for the disabled students. The have asked the university for a list of names of the Post-Graduate students so that they will be able to fund them. The Department of Labour also fund the technological advancements needed by the disabled students at home such as computers.

From this year the university has established a problem with the Department of Labour. They don’t want to fund the students of the Humanities Department any more as they find that the disabled students are usually not employable when they finish university. They say that it is a scarce employment. The University tried to explain to the Department but they are not giving in.

ESKOM and companies also ask for a list of disabled people to fund but the bursaries are mainly for engineering students. Since there are little or no disabled students in the Engineering Department due to limitation on the subjects they do in school, ESKOM is not given the chance to fund them.


Is it difficult for disabled students to find a steady job?

There is a policy that all companies have to employ a certain percentage of disabled people into their company. Today’s companies only employ disabled people because of the policy. The disabled people are not supported in the companies and they also discriminated against. The companies find that it is too costly to employ disabled people as they have to restructure for them.

Do you know of any students that are employed?

She says that she does not know of any student from university that is employed.

What provisions does the university have for disabled students?
The university takes in these students because of the quota system as they have to have a certain percentage of disabled students, however they don’t have many facilities to help them because it is too costly for them.

Academically are they successful?

Since they have very disadvantaged background and schools, they don’t have much knowledge of the subjects that the University requires. They make very few points. They only know brail and because they are disadvantaged they don not meet the requirements of the university. Therefore there is an access programme that is offered and if they pass they will be accepted into the university.

Source: Yanja Futshani
Disability Officer- Coordinator assistant
University of KwaZulu-Natal