TEACHERS AT Sinead Kane’s secondary school thought that studying law was too big a challenge for her but that only made the teenager more determined to pursue her career of choice at university.
Heading off from her home in Youghal to University College Cork at age 19 she was apprehensive. Like her fellow students, she was facing the big leap into third-level education and living on campus, away from home for the first time.
But for Kane, who has only 5 per cent vision in each eye due to a rare congenital eye complaint known as aniridia and is registered blind, that transition was a lot more demanding.
For a start, she needed somebody to take notes for her at lectures; an assistant to source articles in the library and read them to her; and assistive technology to help her access material. She doesn’t use Braille but instead depends on a variety of magnifying glasses and zoomtext on her computer which enlarges the print.
Even with these aids, her eyes tire much quicker than someone with full sight and bending over trying to see the small print in law books causes pain in her lower back and wrists. By second year, she was at the point of giving up when her mother Marion, who is totally blind, organised a trip to London for her to meet a group of blind barristers and solicitors and to contact a blind judge working there. They inspired her to continue her studies.
With the help of UCC’s disability office, family backing and huge personal motivation, Kane completed her law degree and master’s, went on to do her training at the Law Society in Dublin and graduated in July at the age of 27 as Ireland’s first registered blind solicitor.
Last year there were 122 vision impaired or blind students attending 22 third-level institutions in Ireland. Just 16 per cent of such students go on to third-level, compared with about 60 per cent of all school-leavers.
But in recent years, colleges have become increasingly accommodating, says Elaine Howley, director of the National Council for the Blind in Ireland (NCBI). It is a “vast improvement” from the days she was studying social science at UCD in the 1990s, when there was no disability officer to help look after her needs.
She had to approach each of her lecturers to explain her disability and request copies of their overhead notes. An obliging uncle read material on to audio tapes, but she had to narrow down the reading list “to make it somewhat manageable”.
It was as a result of her experiences that she became involved in setting up the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability (Ahead), which promotes participation in further education for students with any kind of disability.
Visually impaired people tend to grow up surrounded by people assuming limitations, from family and friends to academic institutions, suggests Howley. She encourages young people to think what they would like to do and the NCBI is there to explore the possibilities, “to see what would be possible and to make this happen”.
The organisation provides training in the use of technology, independent living, orientation and mobility, as well as emotional support, in preparing students for third-level.
While in theory students are entitled to all their materials in accessible formats, in practice this takes a lot of management on the part of the college. Howley recommends that students work with the colleges in finding ways to help them follow their courses.
“It is very much a partnership; what is critical is that students are open and communicative about what they need.”
No one solution suits all students with vision impairment, as they have varying degrees of disability and different ways of coping with it.
Roslyn Allman’s needs at the Waterford Institute of Technology changed substantially over the four years of her business and legal studies. When she started, her main requirement was to have material photocopied onto larger A3 pages so she could read them.
She also needed extra time in her exams and a reader to read the exam papers to her.
But by year three, her sight had deteriorated considerably and she needed a personal assistant to take notes during lectures – usually information from overhead projections or the lecturer’s dictated notes – and to help her in the canteen. In between lectures, the assistant read the notes out to Allman so she could type them up.
By fourth year, she could no longer see to read, even with the assistance of a computer magnification package, and needed material on audio CDs. Lecturers’ handouts could be e-mailed to the college’s disability office where, with the use of computer software, they were converted to CDs straight away. Books and online material were more difficult to access in an audio format.
“Some of the excuses I was being given were pretty poor,” says Allman (24), who is from Portarlington, Co Laois. “But there was not one person whose sole job was to do this, it was along with their other work.”
However, she did get all the essential material. “What I didn’t have was what gets you extra points in the exam, puts you one step ahead.”
By the time of her final exams, she was using screen reading software known as Jaws (Job Access with Speech). It calls out what she is typing and if she opens up a document, it reads it out to her.
Throughout college she took her exams using a computer in a separate room, as she always needed someone to read the exam paper out to her.
However, there is more to college life than the studying and exams. Some people, says Howley, get so focused on how to do their work, they don’t get a chance to participate in other activities. “We would encourage people to get involved and make the most of their experience.”
It can be less obvious aspects, such as socialisation and relationships, which vision impaired people find particularly difficult at college – at a time when they are finding themselves as individuals.
For instance, says Howley, in a pub do they tell someone they need to be accompanied to the bathroom because they won’t be able to find the group on the way back? If they go out for a meal and can’t see the menu, do they ask someone to read it or just have what the person beside them orders? And for all the talk of spotting a nice guy across the room – what if you can’t see that nice guy?
“Obviously the social side was difficult,” agrees Allman, “but I had my group of friends before my sight deteriorated.” It was only by fourth year that she needed a cane to negotiate the campus.
Having completed an internship at Microsoft earlier this year and now seeking a job, her advice to youngsters with a vision impairment is: “If there is a college course you want to do, definitely go for it. The supports are out there but nobody is going to come up to you and say this is what you are entitled to, so be sure to know what you are entitled to and make sure you get it.”
Alan Byrne from Clondalkin in Dublin is the first member of his immediate family to be heading to university. While his 440 points in this year’s Leaving Certificate were not enough to secure him his first choice of medicine in TCD, he has not given up on that dream yet.
Having just turned 17, he has deferred an arts place in UCD for a year and has instead accepted a place on the Trinity Access Programme, where he will be able to try a range of subjects. If he does well on the programme, he may be able to get directly into an undergraduate course of his choice in the college next year.
At this stage, the size of the UCD campus and the longer trip from home to get there also seemed a little daunting for Byrne, who has only 3:20 vision due to toxoplasmosis.
While a pupil at Deansrath Community College in Clondalkin, he invented a belt with sensors on it to help people with sight loss move about more freely. It won him a Health Research Board prize at last year’s Young Scientists’ Exhibition and he has since applied to patent it.
Describing himself as “very outgoing”, he is now eagerly awaiting his introductory programme at Trinity on September 16th and his chance to contribute, as well as participate, in the world of third-level education.
- For more information see www.ncbi.ie or tel 1850-334353, www.ahead.ie or tel 01-7164396
