Page 137 - RUICHSS 2023 Proceeding

University of Ruhuna ISSN: 2706-0063
Matara, Sri Lanka

parents of the SWDs and the requirements for providing them with a

conducive learning environment at the Universities. This study aims to fill
this gap.

6. Results and Findings

Among the overall findings, the most significant factor of the study was that

the majority of the SWDs were confined to Humanities and Social Sciences.
The majority of the academic staff members have had some experience in

teaching for SWDs except the Faculty of Veterinary Science. One of the
notable factors found in this study was 97% of the academics agreed that

equal access to higher education should be made available for SWDs.
Furthermore, 74% of academics agreed that they did not use any special

mechanism for teaching, for SWDs. Apart from that, 81% of the academics

agreed to have SWDs attending their lectures online, if attending physically
is difficult. There was more than 50% agreement among the academics on

the majority of the attributes related to willingness to provide special
accommodation to SWDs other than providing programmes for raising

awareness, as stated in the survey. Only 13% of the academics obtained
feedback on their teaching from their students. In the sample, 79% of them

agreed that their subjects are suitable to teach for SWDs. However,

University of Peradeniya (UoP) had the highest number of academics (13%)
who felt their subjects were not suitable for SWDs while this percentage in

the University of Ruhuna, SLTC and Eastern University were 2%, 2% and

1% respectively.
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