ASEAN universities initiatives in nurturing students with disabilities: Basis for the development of an inclusive guidance program

Abstract

This mixed-method explanatory research sought to describe the initiatives in nurturing students with disabilities on the areas of personal, social, and career development as well as the promotion of equal rights among the six selected ASEAN universities, Year 2017-2018. The participants were selected using an inclusion criteria. Quantitative data were gathered using the duly validated researcher-made questionnaires while the qualitative data were obtained from the interviews and narratives of the participants. The descriptive statistical tools used were frequency counts and percentages while the qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results revealed that the existing policies/programs on personal development focuses on self-development, student retention and ensuring student's safety; on career development, the focus were on career counseling, forging of linkages and the provision of the transition program after graduation; on social development, these were more on the observation of proper decorum, leadership and the provision of rewards, incentives and conflict resolution; and finally on the promotion of equal rights, the emphasis were more on the inclusion procedure, accessibility to services and opportunities, and the admission procedure. Further, it has been noted that as to the policies/programs that were similar, unique and the emerging trends initiated by the ASEAN universities, these were more of administrative concerns rather than personal, career and social development and the promotion of equal rights. The major challenges that were identified by the student affairs administrators and counselors in the area of personal development were on the non-existence of the policies/programs on the promotion of healthy life style; on career development, these were on career guidance and establishing linkages for appropriate field experience of students with disabilities; and on the promotion of equal rights, administrators pointed out the need to focus more in developing a policy that promotes non-discriminatory acts among students and personnel of the university while the counselors expressed the challenges of their non -participation on the crafting of the admission procedure, inclusion procedure, accessibility of services and in dealing discriminatory conduct towards students with disabilities. Other challenges mentioned were the need to strengthen institutional and academic support. Furthermore, the findings revealed that students with disabilities aspire for more personal, social, academic, and institutional support. From these results, an Inclusive Guidance Program was developed. This output was evaluated by the Registered Counselors and a Special Education specialist. The result revealed that the program shows full evidence of support to students with disabilities.