According to the 2019 Brazilian Higher Education Census1, 48.52 thousand of the students that enrolled in higher education that year live with some type of disability. Despite the number of newcomers with this profile having increased in relation to the previous year, and almost doubled in relation to 2009, it still represents less than 0.1% of the total number of Brazilians with disabilities2. This scenario becomes even more dramatic when we understand that “disability”, for the aforementioned study, encompasses difficulties in locomotion, vision, hearing, speech and comprehension as well as the whole spectrum of mental disorders and giftedness. In other words, Brazilian higher education institutions have consistently being inaccessible to the most diverse student profiles over the years.
The situation of students living with mental, behavioral or neurological development disorders deserves special attention, especially because their difficulties are often considered “invisible”, or non-obvious. Thus, this public must not only deal with the stigma often associated with their diagnosis, and therefore, a greater difficulty in integrating with peers; they must also deal with the lack of accommodation necessary for their academic success. Another complicating factor in this scenario is that, according to an American study3, 50% of mental disorders develop up to the age of 24, the age group in which many people begin higher education. Therefore, there is a great possibility that students with mental disorders will delay receiving a diagnosis and, therefore, the support and treatment, if necessary, that they need, either due to the difficulty in differentiating the symptoms of normal stress during this period, or due to the inaccessibility to medical care.
This scenario is not so different for graduate students. If, on one hand, they tend to have a greater knowledge of the university's structure, its resources and available accommodations - which may not even be the case for newcomers from other institutions or other countries - on the other hand, they experience a greater demand for productivity and performance, often conditioned to the financial support they receive. In addition, according to studies, many graduate students report feeling isolated, not very much supported by their supervisors, discriminated for their identities, which leads to the impressive statistic that graduate students are 2.4 times more likely to develop mental disorders than the general population4. Thus, we conclude that the university environment is harmful to the mental health of its students.
The good news is that recognizing the problem is the first step to get a solution. It is urgent that universities invest in support and student permanence programs, especially focused on providing wide and free medical and psychological assistance to their community; the expansion of accommodation measures for people with disabilities, including relaxing the requirement to present a medical certificate to have access to this resource; independent inspection of allegations of discrimination and harassment; conducting mandatory training on good supervisory practices for all supervisors at the institution; and awarding and supporting initiatives that foster collaboration rather than competitiveness between people and research groups. Providing quality education to all is an obligation of the State prescribed in the Brazilian Constitution and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities5. But, more than obeying the law, making the academy more inclusive is guaranteeing a human right.
Author
Melissa Mendes is a PhD student in Physics at McGill University, Canada, and the first Wellness Officer in the department's graduate student association.
References:
1. https://www.gov.br/inep/pt-br/areas-de-atuacao/pesquisas-estatisticas-e-indicadores/censo-da-educacao-superior/resultados, accessed on March 22, 2021.
2. https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/euestudante/ensino-superior/2020/10/4884255-mais-de-65-milhoes-de-universitarios-sao-de-instituicoes-particulares.html, accessed on March 22, 2021.
3. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/adult-mental-health-disorders-and-their-age-at-onset/13F1A156235E5FF0D904F2CE2FDC053F, accessed on March 22, 2021.
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733317300422, accessed on March 22, 2021.
5. https://acnudh.org/pt-br/convencao-sobre-os-direitos-das-pessoas-com-deficiencia/, accessed on March 22, 2021.
