Inclusive University Education in Bolivia: The Actors and Their Discourses

Abstract

Education policies in Bolivia and other parts of Latin America have improved significantly in recent years. However, there continue to be barriers to higher education for students with specific educational support needs and difficulties are still found in the institutional management of inclusive education. This paper aims to better understand the elements that facilitate and hinder university inclusion of students with functional diversity in Bolivia. The methodology used is qualitative. The discourses of key informants within the university community were collected using the focus group technique. The software Atlas.ti-8 was used for data processing and inductive coding was performed using the constant comparison method. The study’s main findings indicate that both the categorization of functional diversity and the financing model in place have a great impact on inclusive education actions at the university level. The research also reveals a lack of correspondence between the rights of people with functional diversity and the resources allocated to them. The conclusions point to the need to establish intersectional institutional strategies based on the recognition of diversity as an essential value in the development of inclusive and sustainable education.

Factors of educational inclusion to improve learning: Teachers' perspectives

“…The right to educational inclusion is on a global scale with different directions as barriers to find greater inclusion and cultural diversity in the university which puts in trouble the entire university education system for compliance and adaptation with the provision of teachers, curricular adjustments, interaction between peers and the main resources to meet them [25]. Therefore, strategies of recognition and ethical values should be implemented in educational institutions to sustain a sustainable and inclusive education [2] between society and the educational community.…”

“…The advancement of theory regarding inclusive education is not yet strong New theories must be developed to improve educational inclusion not only in the classroom but also within society [1]. Educational policies in many countries have been improving with respect to inclusive education only on the emotional side because there are still barriers to support with exclusive educational specifications for inclusive education [2] despite the existence of factual laws and legal representations in favor of or against where teachers know the topic of "inclusion" and mention that "they only have an effect on children with special needs" [3].The practice of inclusive education during COVID-19 in countries such as Argentina has not been able to guarantee access to students with special abilities due to a lack of technology and connectivity, so teachers put aside their curricular planning and ask for help with individualized attention from family members [4].…”

Use and Knowledge of ICTs in Inclusive Education at Educational Levels

“…Table 2 shows the values of the Pearson Correlation between the visual, hearing, cognitive and motor disability variables, finding a strong significant Pearson Correlation between the variables. Figure 6 shows (a) the use of ICT in the classroom with a mean of 3.5, standard deviation 8.14, which means that teachers at different levels of education use ICT to conduct their classes and (b) this motivates teachers and students themselves to use ICT, resulting in a mean of 6.52, standard deviation of 2.031, which means that teachers have a regular motivation (poor [1, 4>; regular [4, 7> and good of [7,10]) among teachers and students.…”

“…Because of the presence of Covid-19, inevitable changes have been suffered in all humanity [7], so in countries like Europe, concepts and issues of inclusion are investigated with systematic approaches prevailing interactions in the classroom, political, social contexts and categories of social character where the results show us the dominance of special needs and disability, but with the presence of exclusion by gender, social class, religion and geography [8]. Despite the existence of reforms to promote inclusive education with changes in the system of support and funding for students [9], there were effects not only in European countries, but also in Latin American countries but with the presence of barriers to better education, these barriers hinder inclusion at the university level with so much cultural diversity as in Bolivia, which due to lack of coordination between law and resources allocated were lost to institutions responsible for diversity and inclusion [10]. With the presence of the pandemic the education sector was considered as a worrying sector due to the closure of educational institutions that affected more people with special inclusion, because it had to face educational policies, inaccessible technologies and leave aside the educational inclusion to make parents responsible [11] and even the administrative staff shows phobia to Covid-19 [12], for such reason inclusive education is considered as the protector of students with special abilities [13].…”

Engaging Environmental Sciences Students in Statistics through an Inclusive Experience in a Spanish University

“…Despite the need of the current society of inclusive higher education experiences that inspire and motivate other university teachers, there is still not enough work addressing this challenge. However, the study of the inclusion of people with disability at university has been developed with more intensity in recent years in different parts of the world, as can be found in [11,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Unfortunately, this trend is not as exciting if we focus on the field of science in general and statistics in particular.…”