Permanência de estudantes com deficiência em universidades federais de Mato Grosso do Sul na pandemia de COVID-19

Abstract

The inclusion of students with disabilities in higher education in Brazil is relatively recent, enhanced by the actions of national and international social movements since the 1980s. This democratization of access should include, in addition to increasing the number of openings, the implementation of public policies to meet the specific needs of these students, enabling their permanence at this level of education. The COVID-19 pandemic, declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020, has affected the educational systems all over the world and increased the challenges for the inclusion and permanence of students with disabilities in higher education. In this scenario, the present research has the general objective of exploring the actions adopted by federal universities in Mato Grosso do Sul for the permanence of students with disabilities during the pandemic. For this, the following specific objectives were proposed: a) to understand the policies of inclusion of students with disabilities in Brazilian higher education; b)identify the national scientific production and institutional records of public universities related to the permanence of students with disabilities in higher education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; c) to scrutinize the strategies developed by federal universities in Mato Grosso do Sul to ensure the permanence of students with disabilities in the pandemic context. This is an exploratory investigation, with a qualitative approach, whose object of study were the actions practiced by the Federal University of Grande Dourados (UFGD) and by the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS). The survey study was carried out through semi-structured interviews with participants indicated by the institutions and it was analyzed through four analytical axes: funding, technological accessibility, pedagogical support and challenges during and after the pandemic. In the funding axis, it was found that the resources used came from the National Program of Student Assistance (PNAES) and the Include Program; in the axis that deals with pedagogical accessibility, it was concluded that all institutions made some resources available to facilitate learning; in the axis referring to pedagogical support it was identified that the institutions made possible, in different ways and levels, to support academic activities; and in the last axis it is observed that the main challenge was the difficulty in accessing the internet. The results showed that the federal universities of Mato Grosso do Sul, although they have not systematized the data with the specific needs of students with disabilities, sought, in a challenging context and public health emergency, to build possibilities for the permanence of students with disabilities during the pandemic of COVID- 19.