Abstract:

Education democracy gains depth when knowledge distribution honors the diversity of the individuals involved, who have a right to receive their formation in the public sphere. Education is a human right non-transferrable by the State, which is responsible for guaranteeing its full application to all citizens.

The public university committed to this unavoidable right must deploy strategies and policies that generate the right conditions and encourage the construction of inclusive institutions where social individuals become integrated and involved and transform their world as they are transformed by it, beyond social, economic, physical and cultural conditions, among others.

The process of constructing an inclusive university needs to identify cultural, pedagogical and institutional practices, both implicit and explicit, that will contribute in the construction of a more participative, inclusive and fair society.

These new political and institutional configurations are set within a normative framework that shows the deep democratic and egalitarian transformations consolidating this new reformulation of the legitimacy of the higher education system. As expressed in the Statute of the UNLP, the World Conference of Higher Education final report (UNESCO 2009) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, education is a fundamental right and a strategy to extend opportunities and reduce inequity among social groups, close divides and encourage equality. The convention not only states that States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education (Article 24) but also emphasizes the need to guarantee their effective exercise. Likewise, Argentine Higher Education Law 24.521 and Law 25.573, its amendment on higher education for persons with disability, indicates in Article 13, section C, that higher education state institutions must guarantee equal opportunities and possibilities to all students.

The processes of transformation of the university institution required to acknowledge diversity build bridges to the inclusion and integration of persons with disability but also touches on multiple "new" issues that contribute to complexity.

The dynamics and direction of changes both in pedagogical practices and in formative and cultural processes necessary for this integration are affected by tensions, resistance and differing approaches to academic scenarios.

This paper will focus on the Computer Science School of the UNLP which, with over ten new students presenting difficulties such as blindness, PDD (Pervasive Development Disorder), Asperger Syndrome, deafness and impaired hearing, among others, generated scenario that challenged and tested the Institution itself as a whole, causing it to react in the face of diversity with concrete actions that would favor inclusion.

In a collaborative work plane and together with teachers, authorities, students and tutors, strategies were deployed that would allow students to enter academic life and receive the attention and monitoring needed to guarantee adequate academic passage for disabled students.

The goal of this paper is to describe in detail the series of inclusion policies that have been applied at the Computer Science School since 2010, as well as present the difficulties, tensions and resistances encountered in this transformation process that place obstacles in the path towards the final establishment of a public and inclusive school as devised.