A Practical Proposal for the Inclusion of Blind Students in a Career of Engineering: A Case Study

Abstract

The attendance of a blind student to an engineering career means new challenges on the higher education around accessibility and equality in opportunities. From an inclusive approach, from a study case was trying to develop a practical proposal for the inclusion of students with full blindness in an engineering career. With a qualitative methodology based on criteria judges, the semi-structured interview and the documentary analysis, it was possible to systematize and validate the information from different sources. That was collected between 2012 and 2018 during the stages of admission, permanence and graduation. For data collection, questions were mainly used to guide the interviews with judges, teachers and support teams. A practical proposal was generated from the inductive analysis of the actions carried out during this period, that grouped into two conceptual axes: accessibility and academical accessibility. The main conclusion is relevance of coordination all actions with national regulations to ensure the educational support and the accessibility. This proposal will allow all the people involved in different university processes to create their own work routes with blind students.