PADA approves 33 US universities for children with disabilities – ARAB TIMES
Higher education allocates 50 places to students
KUWAIT CITY, February 5: The Public Authority for Disability Affairs (PADA), in coordination with the National Authority for Academic Accreditation and Education Quality Assurance, has approved the selection of 33 universities for United States of America that correspond to the nature, degree and severity of disability in children with disabilities who are sent abroad to study, reports the daily Aljarida citing informed sources.
They revealed that the Ministry of Higher Education has allocated 50 places for these students but the number of selected students does not exceed 35. The sources explained that coordination is underway with the National Universities Selection Authority in Great Britain. Britain, Canada and Australia. The selection of students is made according to specific requirements, such as they must have Kuwaiti nationality, and they must hold a recent disability proof certificate issued by PADA for hearing, visual or physical disabilities, at provided that the degree of disability is moderate or severe. In addition, the student must have obtained an “O Level” academic certificate in the same system or its equivalent in its scientific and literary sections, and the validity of the certificate must not exceed three academic years from the date of obtaining of the diploma.
Holders of a foreign secondary certificate from inside or outside Kuwait or any of the Arab countries are required to present an equivalence of the certificate from the Special Education Department of the Ministry of Education. The sources indicated that the countries to which the scholarships are sent are determined by the Ministry of Higher Education”, but there are well-known Arab and Western countries with a large population of Kuwaiti students, namely Egypt, Jordan , Britain and America.
They said, “The financial cost of the student and the exchange process are determined and executed by the Ministry of Higher Education.” Furthermore, a recent statistic released by PADA showed that the total number of disabled people in Kuwait is around 50,000 and their disabilities are developmental, kinesthetic, audio, visual, mental, psychological, physical or educational. In this regard, the sources revealed that “mental disabilities ranked first with a total of 12,000 cases, and psychological disabilities ranked last with 1,100 cases. Motor disabilities come second with 11,800 cases, followed by physical disabilities with 9,100 cases and then educational disabilities with 5,900 cases”.