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Invisible disabilities canada11/22/2023 Thus, the role and responsibility of disability units within higher education institutions is to provide students with disabilities with equal opportunities that will give them a fair chance of succeeding in their tertiary education (Mutanga 2017). Institutions of higher learning, therefore, need to be proactive in their approach to be inclusive in addressing a range of barriers, such as physical structures, methods of teaching and assessment, as well as sociocultural beliefs (Morrison, Branda & Cilliers 2009). Specifically, it states that people with disabilities have the right to mainstream education with personal assistance where necessary, assistive technology and specialised teaching (Matshedisho 2007). The Disability Rights Charter of South Africa has guided the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET 2018). These documents are in accordance with the World Health Organization’s action plan from 2014 to 2021, which is based on the human rights premise (World Health Organization 2015). The following issues have been addressed in these documents: firstly, the right of persons with disabilities to have access to tertiary education secondly, the equality of education provided and thirdly, the issue of reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities, within the tertiary education context. In addressing the issue of educational inclusivity at the tertiary level, the Department of Higher Education of South Africa’s approach has been particularly influenced by the following legislative documents: the United Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the United Nations International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) (2006), the South African Bill of Rights (Act 108 of 1996) and the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ( 2015). The nature of disability in higher education in South Africa This is specifically aligned with the white paper of 2016, which emphasises a commitment to improve access, inclusion and success for students with disabilities in a higher education setting (Department of Social Development 2016 Mutanga 2017). However, within the democratic South Africa this has progressed towards more inclusionary practices such as policy initiatives and development. Furthermore, people with disabilities were excluded from primary and secondary education, and these individuals were not prepared for tertiary education. For instance, during the apartheid regime, persons with disabilities were both marginalised and excluded from society and development initiatives (Sangeeth 2016). Practices of exclusion have a deep history in South Africa. As a result of the absence of physical markers for invisible disabilities, people with invisible disabilities may have to repeatedly decide whether to disclose their disability or not (Stone 2005).Falch and Harnaes ( 2012) asserted that the general lack of understanding about invisible disabilities often sets up the possibility for a negative reaction or particular barriers, which may result in the individual being ‘labelled’, isolated and excluded once a disability is disclosed (Shelton & Matthews 2001). Invisible disabilities include an array of disabilities such as (but not exclusive to) sleeping disorders, learning disabilities, autoimmune diseases and brain injuries (Cook & Clement 2019 Dalgin & Ballini 2008 Nalavany, Crawan & Sauber 2015 Norstedt 2019). Invisible disability, as defined by the Invisible Disabilities Association ( 2018), encompasses psychological, neurological or physical conditions that constrain afflicted individuals’ movements, senses or activities, but which are invisible to the spectator (Cook & Clement 2019). People may be faced with a more ‘immediately’ perceptible disability, such as a physical or sensory disability (Viriri & Makurumidze 2014), and some may be faced with challenges that are not immediately perceptible, such as learning difficulties, known as invisible disabilities (Venville et al. ( 2014) asserted that the estimated number of persons who have disabilities might be higher than most numerical representations. People with disabilities in South Africa make up 13% of the population, of which 5% have a severe disability (Maziriri, Madinga & Lose 2017) however, Graham et al.
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