Students with disabilities choose institutions where they can ¡°survive, not thrive¡± in a world where infrastructure, employment and attitudes are stacked against them, a Christchurch forum has heard.

Nikita Van Dijk, co-president of New Zealand¡¯s National Disabled Students¡¯ Association, said mundane matters rather than passion governed the institutional and subject choices of disabled ¡°¨¡°ì´Ç²Ô²µ²¹¡± (students).

¡°It¡¯s not about rankings,¡± Van Dijk told the THE Campus Live ANZ event at the University of Canterbury. ¡°It¡¯s not about socialising, because we can never get in the room half the time anyway. It is: can we get a degree in the first place, and can we do it without harm to our bodies, our mental health or our families?

¡°We go into institutes knowing that we won¡¯t be able to engage with a lot of university events. I¡¯ve seen people choose degrees not based on their interest or even whether¡­it¡¯s got high employability, but whether they can physically access that particular course pathway. That is the general experience. We leave with a qualification that means we¡¯ll survive, not thrive.¡±

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Van Dijk, who suffers from two rare and painful disorders and is completing a master¡¯s degree in disability and inclusion studies at the University of Waikato, said access to employment and education was enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. But even though New Zealand had ratified the convention in 2008, those obligations were routinely flouted.

¡°Most disabled students really struggle to get placements or undertake work-integrated learning. We have watched students be kicked from placements just for their disability. We have watched students be denied reasonable accommodations because nobody can agree to what that is. If you¡¯re told you don¡¯t have a right to be in the room because you have a walking stick, for example, it¡¯s a NZ$60,000 [?26,000] waste of time.¡±

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Irfaan Ariffin, president of the New Zealand International Students Association, said his constituents also struggled to secure the placements they needed to graduate in areas like medicine, dentistry and physiotherapy. He said overseas students were an ¡°equity group¡±, although they were often not accepted as such.

¡°International students¡­want to come and live in this country and contribute. It is really ironic that [they] are having challenges in getting their postgrad jobs in the health sector when the health sector has been cut and people say nobody¡¯s keen to go into the healthcare sector.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com