…Gives highlight on UNICAL disability friendly admission policy
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Florence Banku Obi, has visited the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, Mr James Lalu, in his office.
The visit offered the VC the opportunity to discuss issues of inclusion of persons with disabilities in Nigeria and advocacy for the implementation of the discrimination against persons with disabilities Act.
She also discussed collaboration and partnership between the Commission and the University which is the leading university in the South South region of the country with robust training programmes in Special Needs Education.
The VC drew the attention of the Executive Secretary to the disability friendly admission policy of the University which has given opportunity for more than 100 students with various disabilities to actualize their dream of a university degree.
The VC, who is a Professor of Special Needs Education, equally used the opportunity to inform the Executive Secretary of the University’s preparedness to host the conference of Sign Language Interpreters in August 2021.
Responding, the Executive Secretary expressed his pleasure at the visit and the Commission’s willingness to partner and collaborate with the University in some of its activities.
He also informed the VC of the Commission’s efforts at developing an accessibility engineering curriculum as an area of specialisation and the inclusion of disability studies in the general studies programme.
The Executive Secretary told the VC of the Commission’s planned visit to all Higher institutions of learning to take statistics of all the students with disabilities with a view to giving them some financial support.
He promised to personally attend the Sign Language Interpreters conference in the University in August.
The VC was accompanied by the Acting Bursar, Mr Joseph Odum and some staff of the liason office.
