For the original Hungarian version of the brief description about the role of the Support Service on the Tarts Velünk.hu website, click on the link below:
The English translation of the article can be found below.
"We can only help those who talk about their difficulties."
Higher education institutions provide considerable support for people with disabilities, and major universities are learning from each other. The University of Pécs was ahead of its time in tackling this issue, with many wheelchaired, blind and deaf students still attending. And their parasport department has a considerable number of students.
The University of Pécs Student Support Centre has a long history, having been set up 16 years ago precisely because of the increasing number of students with disabilities. The support system had already been in place at the university, but with only one specialist who could not cope with the increasing number of tasks alone. "The Support Services were launched at that time, and the disability coordinator of our institution contacted the offices in Pécs. However, it turned out that they could not cater for the students either. This is when the idea of the university starting its own support service came up. Since then, we have been steadily developing, and currently eight colleagues and occasionally a foreign volunteer provide assistance to nearly 300 students with disabilities. Those are the ones we know about, but obviously there are still some of the 18,000 students who have a mild disability - or don't want others to know about it - and therefore don't ask for support. However, we can only help those who talk about their difficulties," says Csaba Magdali, disability coordinator at the University of Pécs and head of the Support Service. The institution not only looks after students but also colleagues, 180 of whom have a disability.
Respond to needs
The University Service tries to respond to the needs of students and solve the problems that young people encounter. For example, they have a minibus with a lift to transport people with severe mobility problems and a car to transport visually impaired people who need assistance. They also have students who learn the routes and can travel safely with dogs. Visually impaired students are also helped by the fact that the University's students now mainly learn from digital learning materials, which can be handled by reading programs for the blind, and that class materials are also recorded - but only lectures, not student discussions - and can be provided by the University if they feel they need them.
Everything can be done
Although the institution has not had a student who communicates only by sign language for many years, help is available for such students. For them, the support service asks the National Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing for a sign language interpreter. Other hearing impaired people do not need such help, because the hearing aids they have now are very good, especially if they can read lips. "Of course, we also make notes for them if they need them, and we also have students who are given what is called a mobile induction loop to hang around their necks. This is like a transceiver, the transmitter part is used by the instructor and the receiver part by the students wearing the hearing aids. The induction loop is needed so that only the information within the circuit reaches the end point, not the surrounding noise," explains Csaba Magdali.
The University also has its own sports club, within which a parasport section of about 80 people has been formed. The disabled students mainly play rattle ball and basketball, but there is also table tennis, bowling and boccia. The department has a strong sporting record, with several members competing internationally.