Thursday, 10 May 2018

KNUST CAMPRIDE BUSES NOT DISABILITY FRIENDLY


It is a nice initiative by the Vice Chancellor of KNUST to introduce shuttle buses to convey students from the lecture block to their various halls of residences on campus. These help to ease pressure on the students who mostly trek from the lecture block to their halls of residences to and fro.
The University authority failed on their part to consider the minority group on campus thus “The Persons with Disabilities” when procuring these buses. The university have a department for Disability Studies under School of Medical Sciences and even have persons with disabilities taking courses at the Undergraduate level. Irrespective of their small number on campus the university authorities have no mandate to ignore their needs.
Under the Persons with Disability Act 2006, Act 715 section 23 states that:

Integration of needs of persons with disability
23. The Ministries responsible for rail, air, and road transport and where
appropriate the Ministry of Local Government shall ensure that the needs of
persons with disability are taken into account in the design, construction and
operation of the transportation network.

In this regard the Department of Community Health should have been consulted if the University really cares about Persons with Disabilities on campus.

We are hereby pleading with the University authorities to make the rest of the buses yet to arrive Disability Friendly and Accessible. 

Fig. 1 One of the new buses which are not disability accessible 

Fig. 2 The bus must have a ramp to aid PWDs 

Fig. 3  A ramp embedded bus for easy accessibility by PWDs 

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