TheJakartaPost
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Access to college for special needs kids remains elusive
For most of the 21.84 million people with special needs in Indonesia, college remains beyond their reach.
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A specialist care facility in England is using virtual reality (VR) headsets and data mining to help children with autism to acclimatize to scenarios they are likely to encounter outside of school. (Shutterstock/Lightspring)
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fter graduating from high school, Deta is applying to study at a West Java college that is offering classes for people with special needs. The 18-year-old from Jakarta believes a college degree will give him the chance to contribute to society, in spite of his disability.
He promises he will do his best if accepted. But Deta should not raise his hopes too high.
Law No. 8/2016 on the rights of people with disabilities calls on higher education institutions to promote inclusiveness, but so far this has given false hopes. For most of the 21.84 million people with special needs in Indonesia, college remains beyond their reach.
Poor monitoring of the law means few colleges are implementing the law, limiting their right to proper education.
Most universities running programs for special needs allocate limited teaching and learning resources. The lecturers are mostly researchers and industry practitioners not fully trained to teach students with special needs. They need to be assisted by special education professionals in running classes.
The 2016 law requires every college to run a disability unit responsible for assisting the learning process. Yet, four years since the law was enacted, only five of the more than 4,500 colleges in Indonesia have complied.
The law states an administrative penalty shall apply to any college that fails to establish a disability unit.
