Literature on HE participation in many countries shows that the sector is no longer considered as a luxury item, but as a necessity as it is conducive to both individual and national technological, economic and social development (Meyer et al., 2013). Most countries have therefore now attempted to widen their HE participation rates. In this context the British Council (2012) report predicted that between 2011 and 2020 there would be a global growth of 21 million HE students or an average 1.4 per cent global increase of HE students every year. At the global level, there has already been an increase
in the gross enrolment rate (GER) of the HE cohort age from 18 per cent in 1999 to 27 per cent in 2009 (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2011). Even the SSA region, which often lags behind in HE enrolment, has had an encouraging increase to 6.3 per cent in 2009 from 3.9 per cent in 1999 (UNESCO, 2011). Similarly, Tanzania has also had an increase in the HE GER from 1.4 per cent in 2005 (Mwaipopo et al., 2011) to 2.5 per cent in 2009 (UNESCO, 2011).
These globally improved HE participation rates have had a massive impact, even on some non-traditional HE students, particularly women. The global female HE GER is now higher than that of their male counterparts (UNESCO, 2011). Although these positive developments in women’s participation have taken place in countries of the Global North there has also been noticeable improvement in women’s HE participation in the Global South. In Tanzania, for example, the annual admission rate of women has also improved to reach 36.2 per cent in 2012, up from 25 per cent in 2002 (TCU, 2013). Despite the commendable improvement in women’s participation in HE globally, Morley (2011) in her article Misogyny Posing as Measurement Disrupting the Feminisation Crisis Discourse, informs us that HE is still male-oriented in terms of its values, norms and processes. For this reason, even though women are participating in HE they are still outsiders because its values, norms and processes are not in their favour.
The spirit of HE participation improvement has spread to disabled students as well. Global North literature such as that of the UK continuously indicates that more disabled students are now entering HE education, which is an indication of the positive impact of widening participation policies and strategies. Morley and Croft, however, remind us that ‘global massification of HE can hide unequal participation rates’ (Morley and Croft, 2011: 383). This hidden inequality also exists in disabled students entering HE. Colin Barnes (2007), for example, notes that most disabled students participating in HE in the UK are from upper or middle class backgrounds, male and not from a minority ethnic group. Riddell et al. (2005) made the same observation in their UK research project investigating the impact of multiple policies on the participation and experiences of disabled students in HE in Scotland and England. UNESCO (1995) cited by Barnes and Mercer (2003) informs us that in the Global South, females with disabilities often have limited access to education, including HE. Supporting UNESCO’s (1995) observation, Mumba (2009) in her study on students with disability in Zambian HE also observed that in Zambian universities the
majority of students with disabilities were male. Nevertheless, Mumba (2009) quoted data from UNESCO (1997), which showed that at the University of Botswana more students with disability studying in HE were female.
In Tanzania, few social indicators are monitored on application (Morley et al., 2010). There is therefore limited statistical data on disabled male and female students in HE. This could be an indication that Tanzania pays less attention to issues of access and participation where disabled students are concerned. However, Possi (1996), a Tanzanian female scholar, conducted a study approximately two decades ago on the gender and education of people with disabilities which found that few disabled women enter HE, compared to the number of disabled men. Despite the limited data in the Tanzanian context on disability in HE, what is apparent is that the participation rate of disabled students has remained low and, in some cases, absent (Morley and Croft, 2011; Mwaipopo, 2011). Likewise, disability has remained one of the key exclusionary factors for educational participation in Tanzania, as well as in other African countries (World Vision, 2007). In Tanzania, for example, of the 55,314 students enrolled in HE institutions in the 2005/6 academic year, only 54 students were disabled (Mwaipopo et al., 2011).
Ebersold (2008), in his work on adapting HE to the needs of disabled students in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, relates such low participation rates to the weaknesses of education systems. He suggests that the system failed to respond adequately to the academic capabilities of disabled students. Likewise, Jackson (2000), in his work on learners who are more likely to be excluded from educational participation, suggests that the low participation of such learners is not because of their characters or lack of capabilities but because of the weaknesses that exist in the education system, which fails to capture their specific individual learning needs. Tinklin and Hall (2006) share the same views and pinpoint the weaknesses of university systems in Scotland, where universities continue to provide support to disabled students instead of removing the constraints. Morley and Croft (2011), when looking at agency and advocacy in HE disabled students in Ghana and Tanzania, pinpointed existing factors that affected the smooth functioning of some universities in those countries. Among other things, they pointed to inadequate teaching and learning facilities as well as the learning environment, which can affect the academic capabilities of students including those with disabilities, meaning that some students may experience HE in a particular way.
Studies conducted in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Matshedisho, 2007; Mumba, 2009; Chataika, 2010) show that disabled students in HE often drop out or experience low achievement because universities often provide them with limited academic and non-academic support. These literatures, which derive from SSA studies, also reveal that universities in this part of the world usually provide limited support because they rarely have plans to change their university environment to cater for students’ special needs. They see these universities as lacking planning strategies in areas of physical structure and/or curricula which are accessible to all students (Matshedisho, 2007; Mumba, 2009; Chataika, 2010). This could mean that universities in SSA countries, including those in Tanzania, consider disability to be an individual problem which needs a cure, and therefore focus their strategies in line with the medical model of disability. Before proceeding to examine the literature on the experiences of disabled students in HE, I find it important, as I have said above, to first look at models of disability.