Barrier-free environment of the university educational environment: creating algorithms

One of the actual issues of the agenda of the university educational space is creating barrier-free environment, which is considered in this article, firstly, as a barrier-free infrastructure and, secondly, as an educational inclusion. The target group that needs this issue to be solved is students with disabilities. This category has the right to be supported at the university. From the point of view of the ecological approach, the inclusion of these persons into social relations corresponds the principles of equality and justice. It is considered today not as a linear process, when one factor influences another at a certain period of time, but, from the point of view of the university environment, taking into account the mutual causality, attention to the impact on people of the environment, their responses in the course of continuous mutual exchange of information, as a result of joint interaction. These processes are especially important at the stage of transition from school to university and adaptation at the university. This interaction itself can be considered as an eco-inclusion. The ecological approach allows the creation of horizontal links in the eco-environment of the university, which can become a new support system for disabled students in the environment. The analysis of the creation of such support systems has become the subject of research in this work. The process of including persons with disabilities in social relations is at the stage of decision when it depends to a large extent on the coordination of actions of management structures and university staff. The material of the article is based on the results of a survey of the main elements of inclusion in Tomsk universities, conducted in October-November 2020. The research was conducted in six directions: 1) analysis of university websites in terms of their convenience for students with disabilities; 2) analysis of documents, dedicated to the persons with disabilities in universities; 3) test purchases in admissions offices, taking into account types of disability (appeals as an applicant (in person or in absentia) to the admissions offices of universities with a request to answer a number of questions about the training of persons with disabilities); 4) interviews with representatives of universities who accompany students with disabilities; 5) questioning students; 6) organization of visits by the wheel-chaired person to those educational buildings of universities, which are posted on to be equipped with elements of a barrier-free environment. The main criteria for the attainable levels of a barrier-free environment were identified as: 1) minimum (presence of some elements); 2) socially acceptable level (more than 50% of elements); 3) accessible barrier-free environment (100%). The characteristics of the levels of the educational barrier-free environment were also highlighted, the algorithm for the formation of the inclusive space of the university was substantiated.

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