New vision for university education

Determined to help blind children integrate with society from the word go, Han now works for a disabled rights NGO in Shenyang, helping preschool blind children keep up with their able-bodied peers.

"People always see disabled people as being in need of help, instead of as people who have the same rights as everybody else. In fact, they are hidden treasures," said Zhou Haibin, a program officer for the International Labor Organization, which advocates equal employment rights for the disabled.

In China, the education system provides two forms of education for children with disabilities: mainstream schools and establishments that offer special education. However, the mainstream schools don't always have the necessary facilities or teachers trained in special-needs education, according to Zhou.

Xu Jiacheng, the dean of the School of Special Education at Beijing Union University, one of the three that admits disabled students, said discrimination and inadequate allocation of special educational resources are the biggest obstacles for disabled children.

In March last year, the State Council revised the Regulation on Education for Persons with Disabilities, stating that the primary choice for people with disabilities is "inclusive education" in regular schools.

In Beijing, the pilot city for the program, 80 percent of mainstream schools provide inclusive education for disabled students. As a result, they take more than 60 percent of the city's disabled schoolchildren.

However, according to Fu, the program doesn't serve the needs of the blind or visually impaired effectively, because inclusive education is only open to those with minor visual impairments.

Going overseas

For some blind or visually impaired people, the only option is to study overseas. Ni Zhen, 25, who lost his sight when he was age 4, considers himself to be fortunate. He attended the only specialized school for the blind in Tai'an, a city in Shandong province, and later studied massage techniques at Changchun University.

After graduation in 2008, Ni decided to travel to the United Kingdom to study Public Policy. "Registering to take the IELTS exam (an English test for foreigners who want to study in the UK) was easy, and I was able to choose the method by which I took the exam," he said, referring the fact that all colleges and universities in the UK provide facilities for blind students, including infrastructure, Braille and audio-learning tools.

Ni, who is now studying law in Hong Kong, said, "I could never have enjoyed such a life if I hadn't traveled overseas to gain an education."

Last year, he finished writing an independent research paper - called The Untapped Talent - about educational opportunities for the disabled in China, in which he proposed that universities should open all majors to disabled students, and provide them with the necessary tools and study materials.

"The government has an international obligation to ensure that disabled people can enjoy equal opportunity for education," said Zhang Wanhong, a professor of law at Wuhan University. He pointed out that China has signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and said the goal of the convention is to place disabled people firmly within mainstream society and empower them with equal rights.

"We can see gradual changes, but the beautiful ideal that all people are equal needs more commitment from all quarters of society. That not only means an education system that recognizes and meets the educational needs of all students, but that society as a whole should strive to achieve inclusion for those with special needs," he said.