PACES

Progression of  Accessibility Centres In Higher Education For Students With Disabilities In North Africa 

The overall aim of the PACES project is to progress and set up a programme of initiatives in universities in Egypt and Morocco to support the modernisation of higher education by developing Accessibility Centres (static, mobile and virtual) that will enable students with disabilities (SwD) to access assistive technology and support services such as counselling and peer support. Through these centres SwD and the Employer/HEI network SwD will be able to gain employability and transition skills in order to move forward into employment.
The specific objectives are carefully constructed to build upon the outputs of the Tempus SWING project and to incorporate lessons learned and good practice knowledge transferred from several Erasmus+ projects (MUSE, SINCHE and Trans2Work). They are also designed to add innovation in the form of virtual and pop-up/mobile Accessibility Centres to increase the reach and impact to more areas in North Africa. PACES will improve the study and employability chances of SwD by accomplishing the objectives though concrete tangible outputs.
There are many issues for students and graduates with disabilities in North Africa. People with disabilities remain a marginalised and largely overlooked part of Egyptian and Moroccan society. Many students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds face significant barriers to accessing higher education. Disability remains culturally stigmatised and cultural norms often result in families hiding their disabled members and caring for them at home, or struggling on under difficult circumstances. All project partners have learned many lessons and aim through this new project to increase the scale of access to HE and employment opportunities for students with disabilities throughout Egypt and Morocco.

Aims and Objectives

PACES will set up Accessibility Centres for Students with Disabilities, providing equipment and support.. Needs will be analysed, international good practice shared and practical assistance supplied. Cooperation across regions and the establishment of the Employers Network will increase the relevance for the labour market.
Transfer good practice for equal access across EU and North Africa.
Build Accessibility Centres in a further 5 Universities. To amplify the reach of the centres, establish virtual and mobile/pop-up Accessibility Centres to assist students/teachers, spread policy and information throughout the regions.
Establish a network for HE institutions and employers in the Par Countries.
Develop new « Student Support Schemes » for students to work with SwD peer-to-peer.

Specific Objectives

Ultimately the aim is to develop socioeconomic growth by modernising Higher Education and making it more accessible to students with special needs, thereby enabling Students with Disabilities to enter the workforce and to become independent and economically less disadvantaged.
This project will target groups of: teaching staff, trainees either administrative staff or technical staff, high level management students and graduate students with and without disabilities, employers.
Students will be involved in all aspects of planning and delivery to give the project impact on the ground. The “student clubs” started in the SWING Project are crucial to the success of the project and will be involved in supporting SwD practically, socially and politically. The training programme will be compulsory for progression of the administrative and technical staff in the partner universities and other universities will be visited by the mobile/pop-up ACs to encourage take up of the training and resources.
Printed information, a training manual and disability awareness will be distributed to all targeted groups. EU teachers will have an important role in these activities by contributing to the employability and AT workshops and the international conferences. The programme managers will spread the word in all the world networks and associations related to those fields.
A launch of two regional employability and AT workshops will be arranged in Egypt and Morocco. This project targets other regional universities for future cooperation between the partner universities and other EG/MA universities along with the governmental organisations. The Accessibility Centres (AC) and the Employer Accessibility Mentors (EAM) will be recognised as exemplars for other universities in Egypt and Morocco.
At the end of the project two international conferences will be held in Morocco, with 200 attendees including SwD, Govt and Policy makers expected at each.

Partnership

– Universidad de Alicante (UA) – Spain
– University of Macedonia (UOM), Greece
– University of Maribor (UM) -Slovenia
– Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Transport (AAST) -Egypt
– Ain shams University (ASU) -Egypt
– Fayoum University -Egypt
– University of Mansoura (UMans) -Egypt
– University of Abdelmalek Essaadi (UAE)- Morocco
– Ibn Tofail University (UIT) -Morocco
– The Mohammed V University of Rabat (UM5R) -Morocco