Editor’s Note: This article is a part of the “Journalism of Tolerance” project by the Kyiv Post and its affiliated non-profit organization, the Media Development Foundation. The project covers challenges faced by sexual, ethnic and other minorities in Ukraine, as well as people with physical disabilities and those living in poverty. This project is made possible by the support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development and Internews. Content is independent of the donors.
To get to her third-floor classroom every day, the mother of Maria Dokiychuk, a 19-year-old student of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, pushes her wheelchair up 60 flights of steps in the Soviet-era building.
There is no elevator in the building, no ramp for wheelchair users and no stair lifts. So, in order for her daughter to get an education, Natalia Dokiychuk, has to go with her daughter — paralyzed below the waist since birth –at least five times a week.
Of the 2,000 students in the academy, only two use wheelchairs. For them and for all future usuers, the Dokiychuks and professors are trying to raise $115,000 to install stair lifts in all four of the academy’s buildings.
Dokiychuk’s case is far from unique.
Despite a Ukrainian law proclaiming that all citizens, including people with disabilities, are entitled to an education, the reality is that most of Kyiv’s Soviet-era buildings are not equipped for wheelchair users. They lack elevators, ramps and special toilets with handrails.
“Even in Kyiv, few universities provide full access to education,” Valeriy Sushkevych, the president’s commissioner on the rights of people with disabilities told the Kyiv Post. Sushkevych said there are even cases of college administrators rejecting applications from disabled people, thus violating the anti-discrimination laws.
But Julie Sachuk, the head of the Generation of Successful Action, a non-government organization that fights for the rights of blind people, told the Kyiv Post that it is hard to prove that an applicant was rejected because of the disability.
Morever, Sachuk said that only a few universities in Ukraine offer classes in sign language and textbooks written in Braille.
“Officially, there are no restrictions or discrimination,” Sachuk says. “But there is indirect discrimination, because the conditions are not the same for everyone.”
Schools even worse
While conditions at universities and colleges are far from ideal for people with disabilities, those at schools and kindergartens are even worse, Sachuk says.
Out of 167,000 children with disabilities in Ukraine, only slightly more than 62,000 are enrolled in specialized boarding schools, rehabilitation centers and inclusive classes in regular schools. Most stay at home, taught by their parents and visiting teachers.
Sachuk said specialized schools for people with disabilities usually provide bad-quality education. “Most of the teachers there are middle-aged people raised in the Soviet system, who cultivate inferiority complexes in children,” Sachuk said. “They tell the children that they are cripples.”
With the state unable to provide a proper education to children with disabilities, some parents opt for a private education, if they can afford it.
Olena Kolesnyk, the mother of 8-year-old Oleksandra, who is blind, is considering sending her daughter to a local private school. For now, Oleksandra studies at a specialized boarding school in Kyiv. But her mother is unhappy with the conditions, finding them too isolating.
According to Sachuk, many children with disabilities can’t enroll in local schools and kindergartens. Kolesnyk backed her claim, saying that her local kindergarten had rejected Oleksandra when she was four, as they didn’t have specialized staff to look after her. Dokiychuk’s mother Natalia also had to persuade school principal that her daughter, a wheelchair user, “wouldn’t cause any problems.”
Social acceptance
Sushkevych said many parents object to children with disabilities being taught in the same class as their own children. According to a poll conducted by the United Nations’ UNICEF in 2015, only 13 percent of Ukrainian parents would approve of their healthy children having a close association with a child with disabilities. Disabled children often suffer bullying or isolation by their peers as well.
Improving situation
Sushkevych says the situation in education for disabled people is improving somewhat. According to Kyiv City Administration, 18 schools in Kyiv now have inclusive classes. Education Minister Lilya Grynevich has called for amendments to be made to a law on inclusive pre-school education passed in 2013.
Some teacher-training universities have launched mandatory courses on teaching disabled students in inclusive classes. For instance, the Dragomanov National Pedagogy University now trains teachers who specialize in educating blind people and also trains sign-language translators. Most libraries in Ukraine’s top universities now have computers with text-to-speech programs for visually-impaired students. In addition, Ukraine has several private universities with specialized groups for people with disabilities. The biggest one is the Kyiv-based Ukraine Open International University of Human Development.
But Ukraine has a long way to go.
“The Education Ministry doesn’t fully control the quality of inclusive education, making the process haphazard, and in many cases ineffective,” Sachuk said.
