ODL UNIVERSITY INCLUSION EXPERIENCES OF STUDENTS WITH
DISADVANTAGES IN ZIMBABWE

ODL UNIVERSITY INCLUSION EXPERIENCES OF STUDENTS WITH
DISADVANTAGES IN ZIMBABWE

PHILLIPA MUTSVANGWA

BARBARA MAPURANGA

The study’s focus is on students with disabilities and the marginalised. Riddell, Tinklin and
Wilson (2005) assert that universities are arbiters of social justice. However, despite paradigm shift to the
philosophical call for schools for all the disadvantaged students continue to face social injustice and
inclusive disparities at universities. Using ten purposively selected disadvantaged students, the study
engaged the qualitative approach based on the enthnographic design to elicit inclusion experiences of the
disadvantaged ODL students with a view to obtain best inclusive practices from their stories. In-depth
interviews with unstructured questions, unstructured observations and document analysis were use to
collect data. The collected data was coded into themes and patterns emerging from the experiences. The
study revealed that most marginalised students dropped out of ODL either in their first year or second year
due to failure to raise enough fees while students with disabilities showed that their learning moral was
destroyed by lack of relevant provisions to their needs. Thus, they suggested that now that Zimbabwe
ratified the UNCRPD on the 23 September 2013 provisions should stay available in anticipation of
admitting students with various disabilities

International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE)

2014