List of acronyms and abbreviations
Chapter 4: Results
4.1 Response rate for the three categories of respondents
4.2.5 Services provided by the DU
Questions 14 to 17 on the interview schedule facilitated discussion on the services offered by the DU, that is, whether respondents were aware of the DU services, how they got to know about such services and to pinpoint which services were considered useful or not useful to them.
4.2.5.1 Awareness of services provided by the DU
The respondents were asked if they were aware of services provided by the DU. Five of the respondents indicated that they came from special schools such as the Arthur Blaxall School for the Blind and the Deaf in Pietermaritzburg. At such schools, during open days or career days people from different institutions would be invited to tell the students what their institutions offered. Thus they got to know about the services which are offered by the DU from the UKZN-PMB. One respondent said she was motivated by another blind student to come to UKZN – PMB campus and the same student introduced her to the DUC where she was told more about the services that are offered to students with disabilities.
Another student got to know about such services when he was already on campus from posters, notice board and flyers around campus, then he went to the DU and started using the services. The student added, „you know… there is a section in the UKZN application forms which requests the applicant to indicate whether he or she has a disability or not and to further specify the disability… I skipped that part because I did not know whether there was a catch there or not… one would not know whether he or she might be rejected because of that particular disability… one has to be careful of fine prints‟ [sic]. Two respondents were at UKZN-PMB before the DU became active, and they felt that the DU was no use to them „because it was just an empty office… there was no one there until April 2003 when a DUC was employed‟
[on part-time basis, half-day post] then they started using the services. At that time, services that were provided by the DU were only accessible in the morning while the DUC was still in office until the beginning of 2007 when the DUC was employed full- time.
4.2.5.2 Usefulness of services provided by the DU
The respondents were asked to point out the most useful services which were provided by the DU. All the student respondents found that the usefulness of services largely depended on the need one had at a given time, which was further influenced by the degree of sightedness and the usability of the format of the sought information.
Services reported to be useful to all the students at the DU were advice on student funding, liaising with lecturers for an extension of time on assignments, scanning, ZoomText, and liaising with lecturers for a time extension during tests and examinations. In addition, three of the respondents needed oral or electronic exams because they were blind. The blind students elaborated that „any information for them in print is not useful… so our examinations should be in a format that would be suitable for us and in an enabling environment.‟ However an alternative venue had to be provided for such orals exams to minimise disruption to blind and sighted students.
4.2.5.3 Least useful services
The student respondents were asked to identify services that were provided by the DU that were not useful to them for various reasons. The response to this question did not differ much from the preceding one. Six of the respondents thought services that were not useful depended largely on the need which existed at that particular time and whether or not the particular service was available when the need arose.
A student gave the example of the use of JAWS and said that there were times when he would try to use the programme but found that the programme could not be used because either the computers with the program were out of order or the program was not accessible. The unavailability of the JAWS programm at the DU and LANs was cited by the blind students as very limiting in terms of preparing for tests and assignments. Some of the statements to this effect were:
“Just imagine that UKZN-PMB has a number of LANs… but only the New Arts and Commerce LANs have JAWS… I wonder why!”
“The institution has a post graduate LAN which operates for 24 hours… but none of the computers there have the JAWS programme… what does that tell you… does it mean that there are no postgraduate students who are blind?”
“After 4.30 p.m. the New Arts LAN is closed… if you fail to access JAWS at the Commerce LAN… you are doomed for the day… because nowhere else can one get the JAWS programme on campus”.
The researcher was reliably told by the ITD that the UKZN-PMB main campus has three LANs with nine different computer laboratories. For example, the Science LAN, which operates for 24 hours, has one post-graduate laboratory and three undergraduate laboratories and none of the four laboratories has JAWS. The New Arts LAN has four undergraduate laboratories which operate from 8.00 am to 4.30 pm and has only one computer with the JAWS program. The Commerce LAN operates for 24 hours and has only one computer with JAWS. All the laboratories mentioned above have an array of computers which students other than those with visual impairments use.
In a nutshell, the students‟ concern was that there were only a limited number of computers which had JAWS in the UKZN-PMB campus which hindered progress in their learning endeavours.