Progression of Accessibility Centres in higher Education for Students with disabilities in North Africa (PACES)
Funder
EU Erasmus Plus
Value
€998,034
Project team
Jacqueline Cawston, Dr. Lynn Clouder, Dr. Katherine Wimpenny, Dr. Sarah Merry, Cathryn Thompson-Goodwin.
Collaborators
Universidad De Alicante, University of Macedonia, University of Maribor, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Ain Shams University, Fayoum University, University of Mansoura, University of Abdelmalek Essaadi, Ibn Tofail University, The Mohammed V University of Rabat, Université Moulay Ismail.
Project objectives
PACES will set up Accessibility Centres for Students with Disabilities, providing equipment and support.. Needs will be analysed, international good practice shared and practical assistance supplied. Cooperation across regions and the establishment of the Employers Network will increase the relevance for the labour market.
Transfer good practice for equal access across EU and North Africa.
Build Accessibility Centres in a further 5 Universities. To amplify the reach of the centres, establish virtual and mobile/pop-up Accessibility Centres to assist students/teachers, spread policy and information throughout the regions.
Establish a network for HE institutions and employers in the Par Countries.
Develop new "Student Support Schemes" for students to work with SwD peer-to-peer.
Research impact
Ultimately the aim is to develop socioeconomic growth by modernising Higher Education and making it more accessible to students with special needs, thereby enabling Students with Disabilities to enter the workforce and to become independent and economically less disadvantaged.
This project will target groups of: teaching staff, trainees either administrative staff or technical staff, high level management students and graduate students with and without disabilities, employers.
Students will be involved in all aspects of planning and delivery to give the project impact on the ground. The “student clubs” started in the SWING Project are crucial to the success of the project and will be involved in supporting SwD practically, socially and politically. The training programme will be compulsory for progression of the administrative and technical staff in the partner universities and other universities will be visited by the mobile/pop-up ACs to encourage take up of the training and resources.
Printed information, a training manual and disability awareness will be distributed to all targeted groups. EU teachers will have an important role in these activities by contributing to the employability and AT workshops and the international conferences. The programme managers will spread the word in all the world networks and associations related to those fields.
A launch of two regional employability and AT workshops will be arranged in Egypt and Morocco.
This project targets other regional universities for future cooperation between the partner universities and other EG/MA universities along with the governmental organisations. The Accessibility Centres (AC) and the Employer Accessibility Mentors (EAM) will be recognised as exemplars for other universities in Egypt and Morocco.
At the end of the project two international conferences will be held in Morocco, with 200 attendees including SwD, Govt and Policy makers expected at each.
