Higher Education for Everyone: CITS Holds a Unique Meeting of the Deaf with ASU Admissions Office

It’s no secret that the project Inclusive Linguistic Environment of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation of ASU has already moved beyond the university and is actively developing at the regional level. However, do not forget the main goal of the project – to provide an equal access to higher education for deaf and hard of hearing people.

Currently, only 1% of the adult population with hearing impairments living in Astrakhan Region has a higher education. The main reason for this is the lack of interpreters of Russian Sign Language (RSL), who could accompany deaf students in the learning process. Taking into account the fact that considerable attention is paid to the development of an inclusive environment at ASU and that more and more conditions are being created for teaching people with disabilities, the interest of deaf and hard of hearing people in our university is also growing.

After the teambuilding We Are Together, CITS received a request from the deaf participants who got interested in higher education at ASU.

On May 31, the school hosted a meeting of people with hearing impairments with Lyudmila Tovarnichenko, the Head of the Directorate for Pre-University Training & Students Admission, and Natalia Kolenkova, the Head of the Department of Basic Educational Programmes, who told the audience about the opportunities for admission and training at ASU and the available programmes, and answered the participants’ questions of interest. It is very important that the participants of the meeting made suggestions on how to make higher education more attractive to the deaf.

After the meeting, the participants said they had received a lot of useful information, and many went home inspired by the higher education opportunities which they learned about for the first time.