Search results

Higher education institutions are the citadel of knowledge and are heavily involved in formulating building regulations and building infrastructure designs that must conform to the building regulations. The study aims to identify university infrastructures compliant with disabled access from the perspective of the built environment students in Ghanaian universities.

Questionnaire surveys were administered to 500 built environment students across ten technical universities in Ghana with a total population of 3066; 341 were expected based on the formula used. However, upon several reminders, 176 responded. Data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.

The findings show that all university facilities are not fully compliant with disabled access. Structures found to be least compliant are the laboratories, canteens, hall of residence, toilet facilities, football fields, places of worship and transport stations. The facilities with high compliance are the administration block, library, hospital building, lecture halls, department offices and ATM areas. The leading causes for this non-compliant are lack of enforcement of the building regulations, low level of disabled students’ enrolment, age of the building, lack of knowledge and poor building designs.

Compliance with disabled access makes universities world class and creates safe learning spaces for individuals with disabilities, enforcing the right to education for all individuals, particularly those with disabilities. Lack of compliance with disabled access will hamper the full utilisation of these facilities, thereby affecting quality education delivery to people with disabilities.

The findings are essential to the Ghanaian built environment, the lives of disabled individuals and universities. The results provide knowledge on areas of improvement for complete access to structures and facilities by disabled individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitudes of disabled employees toward availability of work facilities, treatment of other employees, and the working conditions in the Jordanian public sector.

A purposive sample of disabled public sector employees (198) was selected to participate in the study by filling the designated questionnaire.

Disabled employees reported a relatively moderate level of satisfaction about the availability of facilities. Also, participants are satisfied with the treatment of their supervisors and colleagues and of the working conditions. Disabled female participants and those who hold graduate degrees reported high-satisfaction level about the treatment they receive from their colleagues at work. The findings also showed that 55 percent of the participants were hired based on humanitarian bases as a result of their disability cases compared with 45 percent who were hired based on their qualifications and merits.

This research significantly contributes to the scarce knowledge that currently exists in the position of disabled employees in the Arab world. Policy makers and human resource managers should develop a clear strategy to provide the facilities for disabled people to accommodate at work. In addition, they should provide professional guidance and rehabilitation training programs aiming to enhance disabled employees’ participation and involvement in the labor market.

The study is one of the first to investigate the status of disabled public sector employees in Jordan and in the Arab world.

This paper aims to explore attitudes of disabled employees towards their work in the Jordanian public sector, including facilities, the way that they are treated by other employees and working conditions.

A sample of disabled public sector employees was selected to participate in the study by filling in a questionnaire. The response rate was very high.

Contrary to some previous studies elsewhere, disabled employees reported a relatively moderate level of satisfaction about the availability of facilities. They were also satisfied with the treatment by their supervisors and colleagues and with the working conditions. Disabled female participants and those who hold graduate degrees reported high satisfaction levels.

This is one of the first studies to investigate the status of disabled public sector employees in Jordan and in the Arab world.

This study aims to identify the level of human resource management difficulties (job suitability, training and development, motivation and performance appraisal) women employees with disabilities face in the Jordanian public sector, the satisfaction of the availability of the work facilities, difficulties they face when interacting with supervisors and colleagues as well as with clients at work.

A descriptive analytical approach has been used through designing a questionnaire aimed to examine the study dimensions. A random convenient sample of 306 women with disabilities was chosen. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.

Analysis revealed that the overall level of human resource management difficulties in the Jordanian public sector as perceived by women with disabilities was moderate (mean = 3). The participants reported a moderate level of assessment (mean = 2.80) about the availability of the work facilities. In addition, they showed a moderate level of satisfaction about both the treatment they receive from supervisors and colleagues as well as from clients with mean values of 2.85 and 2.91, respectively. The participants with physical disability and who hold administrative jobs reported higher level of difficulties of human resources management. Data showed that about 82% of women with disabilities were hired based on a social/humanitarian base instead of merit system.

This study has a significant practical contribution in providing information that will help policy makers and human resource managers to identify job-related difficulties and develop policies and programs to alleviate them to provide a better work environment to integrate employees with disabilities.

This study has a crucial value in filling the knowledge gap in examining the work-life of persons with disabilities in Jordan and in the Arab world.

Despite developments in the fields of technology and health, some people may still have congenital or acquired disabilities. In our world, where one in every seven consumers is disabled, these consumers also have the right to utilize the services offered to them in the best way as the other six. With the developed technology and innovations, it has become easier and more inexpensive for disabled consumers to access products and services. The number of disabled consumers is also increasing day by day in the tourism sector. However, the designs of touristic products are not suitable for every type of disability. The concept in disabled tourism that is known as “Quiet Tourism” in the literature represents the group including consumers with hearing and speech loss. This section aims to present consumers with hearing and speech loss who have to continue their lives this way becoming a new market for accommodation firms and what types of difficulties and opportunities may be encountered. It is aimed to show that the existing infrastructure at accommodation firms is not adequate, but there is a considerable potential.

Despite the presence of people with disabilities in higher learning institutions, facilities provided for both accommodation and classrooms prove to be ineffective in fulfilling their expectations. However, the existing measures have tended to be rigid and unable to incorporate the ever evolving user experiences from constantly enrolling students in public campus buildings. The paper is premised on the notion of social inclusivity of the built environment in public universities through user experiences, measured through a qualitative lens.

The study was qualitative and deployed a case study strategy. Respondents were purposively identified and subjected to in-depth interviews, key informant interviews and focused group discussions. The full realisation of the sample frames was determined by data saturation. Data from responses was thereafter sorted, coded and categorised through a systematic thematic analysis. Some responses reactions were reported verbatim. The anonymity of the respondents was observed though through the use of pseudonyms.

This paper has indicated respondents' experiences regarding social inclusivity of the institutional built environment and thematically categorised them in six areas: complaints mechanism and feedback, pre- and post-enrolment experiences, namely; complaints mechanism and feedback, pre- and post-enrolment experiences and social support as a property management policy. Others include, representation in university decision-making organs, perceptions regarding disability and its needs and distribution of facilities and site works. It recommends that property management practices should be re-oriented to ensure the sustainability of learning facilities for the disabled, taking into consideration the ever-evolving needs and preferences of PWD user students with disabilities.

Linking the social and human rights models to actual experiences of property occupiers is unique. The author believes that it will, in addition to the existing models and strategies, improve on a better achievement of inclusivity of building use used by all categories of members of the society.

Globally, there is a growing proportion of disabled people as a result of different circumstances. This growth generates attention and leads to ways to integrate the affected population into society. Addressing such disability and integration is particularly important at buildings level, enabling and expanding the scope of activities for people with disabilities (PWDs). The rising number of PWDs and the need to integrate them into society create a need for action to improve their living condition and integration into society. This study aims to examine the issue of accessibility for PWDs in higher education facilities in Qatar.

Addressing accessibility at buildings level is particularly important in higher education because it enables inclusion in training and education and increases the potential for productive engagement in society. The study aims to develop an objective tool to assess and measure accessibility in educational institutions. Five selected buildings were examined and evaluated at Qatar University based on proximity, multi-use, vertical and horizontal circulation availability. The survey respondents were randomly selected. An existing assessment method was used in surveying respondents, including those with and without disabilities.

A comparative study was conducted to explore the discrepancy between facility users with and without disability, indicating the gap in existing tools.

The developed tool generates the same outcome when conducted by different assessors, indicating the level of compliance and percentage met as a benefit, not a focus. It allows professionals and non-professionals with minimal experience to conduct the assessment.

This paper compares the provision and risk associated with the lack of safety measures in the student accommodations of a university in the Western Cape province, South Africa, with the aim of developing a guide to improve the provision of the safety measures.

The study adopted a case study research strategy. A questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect quantitative data, whereas an interview was conducted to collect qualitative data. Both descriptive (mean score) and inferential (paired t-test) statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data, whereas a content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data.

Although most of the measures were provided, few critical measures were not adequate or not provided at all. Moreover, the mean scores obtained indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the provision and risk of non-provision of most of the measures. Weapon detector, closed-circuit television (CCTV), water sprinkler system, lift for disabled students, disabled toilet facility, burglar bar on doors, first aid box, medically trained personnel on post and accident logbook were identified as measures requiring urgent attention.

Data were collected only from one university; therefore, the findings of the research study may not be generalised. Thus, a study that can expand the number of participating universities is recommended.

The facilities department and safety unit can use the recommendations provided to improve the safety of the student accommodations. Policymakers could also benefit from the findings of the study.

There is dearth of studies focussing mainly on student accommodation security and safety measures from the infrastructure point of view. Thus, this article contributes to the body of knowledge in this area.

Delay in housing adaptation is a major problem, especially in assessing if homes are suitable for the occupants and in determining if the occupants are qualified for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG). This paper describes the development of two self-administered intelligent integrated assessment tools from the DFG Adapt-ABLE system: (1) The Home Suitability Assessment Platform, which is a preventive mechanism that allows assessment of the suitability of homes based on occupants’ mobility status and (2) an indicative assessment platform that determines if the applicants are qualified for the DFG to prevent lengthy delays.

The adopted method aligned with a development study approach: a grounded literature review, a severity measurement approach, two stakeholder engagement workshops, four brainstorming sessions and four focus group exercises. The system development relied on Entity–Relationship Diagram (ERD) technique for data structures and database systems design. It uses DFG context sensitivity with alignment with DFG guidance, interlinkages and interoperability between the assessment tools and other platforms of the integrated Adapt-ABLE system.

The assessment tools are client-level outcomes related to accessibility, usability and activity based on the assessment process. The home suitability platform shows the percentage of the suitability of a home with assessment results that suggest appropriate action plans based on individual mobility status. The indicative assessment combines the function of referral, allocation, assessment and test of resources into an integrated platform. This enables timely assessment, decision-making and case-escalation by Occupational Therapists based on needs criteria and the eligibility threshold.

These assessment tools are useful for understanding occupants’ perception of their physical housing environment in terms of accessibility, suitability and usability based on basic activities of daily living and their mobility status. The indicative self-assessment tool will substantially cut down the application journey. The developed tools have been recommended for use in the CSJ Disability Commission report and the UK government Guidance on DFGs for local authorities in England.

The current article focuses on the experiences of live music event attendees with visual impairment (VI). It outlines the factors which impact on the accessibility of events and considers how accessibility might be improved for these individuals.

The article reports on findings from a mixed-methods project utilising a structured interview study (N = 20) and an online survey (N = 94). Interview data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, providing in-depth insight into participants’ experiences before and during events. Quantitative survey data were analysed descriptively and statistically, and Thematic Analysis of open-ended responses was carried out.

Attendance at live events varied amongst participants, and so too did the factors impacting on their attendance. Challenges were identified in relation to several key areas: accessing information and tickets, experiences with staff, navigation and orientation, and the use and availability of disabled facilities and specialist services.

This article is the first to offer in-depth exploration of music event accessibility for individuals with VI. It builds on existing research which has considered the experiences of deaf and disabled attendees but has not yet offered adequate representation of individuals with VI. The article offers practical recommendations for venues and organisers seeking to ensure accessible events for all and contributes to the wider discourse surrounding inclusivity at music, arts and cultural events.