CITS Organizes a Unique Meeting of the Deaf with the ASU Admissions Office

The Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation of Astrakhan State University has held a meeting of dead and hard of hearing people 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.

Currently, only 1% of the adult population with hearing disabilities living in Astrakhan region has a higher education degree. The main reason for this situation is the lack of interpreters of Russian Sign Language (RSL), who could accompany deaf students in the learning process.

“The CITS project on developing an inclusive linguistic environment has already gone beyond the university and is actively developing at the regional level. Its main goal is to provide deaf and hard of hearing people with an equal access to higher education. Taking into account the fact that considerable attention is paid to the development of an inclusive environment at ASU, and 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,” CITS Director Uliana Saveleva says.

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

At the meeting, organized specifically for deaf and hard of hearing people, the ASU representatives told them about the opportunities for admission and training at ASU and the available programmes, and answered the participants’ questions of interest.

At the meeting participants made suggestions on how to make higher education more attractive for the deaf community. As the participants said, they had received a lot of useful information, and many went home inspired by the opportunities for obtaining a higher education.