Birzeit University has always been committed to providing equal opportunities for its special needs students and staff, who are persistently encouraged to benefit from its academic programs, services, and activities. Further, the University continuously aspires to create an academic environment conducive to those person’s needs and interest by supporting them with suitable equipment, tools, and relevant policies.
Since its inception, dozens of special needs students have enrolled at Birzeit University. They found a welcoming place here, with facilities and services, which follow international standards, at their disposal. A Special Needs Committee was also established to attend to their academic social and psychological needs.
Fully integrating special needs students into the university’s community and providing a positive, empowering milieu have always been part of Birzeit University’s priorities. In general, students are Birzeit University’s main and primary concern, regardless of their physical status.
Established in 2008, the committee comprises a number of professors and staff members who represent various university components.
The committee is assisted by the Friends of People with Special Needs, a group of student volunteers established in 2010, which includes 66 students from various faculties and disciplines in the university. The group supports special needs students in all aspects of their university experience, such as aiding with test-taking, research tasks, and campus mobility. The group also helps targeted students to attend seminars, workshops, and public lectures, and get involved in field trips.
Mission
To academically, socially, and psychologically empower special needs students within the university’s community; bolster their independence; and build their capacities as active members of the society capable of contributing to its advancement.
Goals
- To adapt the the university’s academic environment to special needs persons’ requirements and needs so as to provide them with equal opportunities.
- To bolster special needs persons’ independence, nurture their cooperative spirit, and bring out their full potential.
- To cultivate confident, active individuals capable of developing the Palestinian community and building the Palestinian state.
Tasks
- Provide support, advice, and guidance to special needs persons, whether academically, socially, or psychologically.
- Provide specialized technological resources, including relevant software and devices, that facilitate access to knowledge.
- Rehabilitate the university’s buildings and facilities to accommodate special needs students’ requirements.
- Communicate, coordinate, and cooperate with professors and instructors of special needs students.
- Encourage interaction between special needs students and the overall student body and establish joint academic and extra-curricular activities.
- Revise the university’s laws, regulations, and strategy to encompass special needs persons’ needs and interests.
- Organize seminars to raise the university community’s and student parents’ awareness on the needs and requirements of special needs persons.
- Establish a center/unit for special needs persons.
Special Needs services locations
Currently, the university hosts two locations where special needs services are provided: the Special Needs Lab, located in the Faculty of Arts – Room 101, and the Special Needs Resources Room in the Main Library.
Both locations include suitable tools, equipment, and specialized software, such as braille embossers, desktop and laptop computers, fixed and mobile text magnifiers, portable braille note-takers with braille displays, voice devices that record and play lecture recordings and text files, text magnification software, and print-to-braille-conversion software.
