Mentally disabled students seek university access

Hurriyet Daily News 19 October 2019

A campaign calling on the education ministry and parliament to produce new regulations for students with mental disabilities who want to study at Turkish universities has drawn support from nearly 92,000 people in a week, writes Esra Ülkar for Hurriyet Daily News. It demands special entrance tests and placement quotas for disabled students, and full high-school diplomas that are valid for university enrolment for students studying at special education centres.

Robert Cem Osborn, a 25-year-old high school graduate and holder of five photography exhibitions, has called for support in his bid to enrol in a university on the campaign website Change.org. He gained public fame when he delivered a speech at the United Nations in March 2018.

Gün Bilgin, Osborn’s mother and head of the Down Syndrome association Down Türkiye, has pointed to many obstacles withholding mentally disabled students from university education. She said after studying with a special curriculum for 12 years, they enter “the same standardised university entrance exam to compete with graduates of standardised high schools”.
Full report on the Hurriyet Daily News site

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