Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs

Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs

PolyU welcomes students with special educational needs (SEN) and is committed to providing an accessible learning environment and inclusive campus atmosphere for all students. Students with SEN, including those with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, hearing impairment, mental illness, physical impairment, speech impairment, visual impairment, visceral disability/chronic illness, and specific learning difficulties, are encouraged to voluntarily declare their needs to the university.

Admission and Disclosure

PolyU follows a non-discriminatory policy in admitting students with SEN. Students are encouraged to disclose their disabilities and provide appropriate documentation as early as possible to facilitate the arrangement of necessary support.

Confidentiality

Students’ SEN will be kept strictly confidential and will only be disclosed to staff/personnel involved in curriculum provision/coordination on a need-to-know basis. Prior consent will be obtained from the student with SEN if there is a genuine need to disclose his/her SEN to fellow students.

Accommodation and Support

Student Affairs Office (SAO) provides coordination and support for students with SEN during their studies. Please click here to browse a list of available services for students with SEN.

The University has a wealth of expertise in rehabilitation to provide support to students with SEN. Experts from various departments, under the coordination of the Student Affairs Office (SAO), could be mobilised to offer assistance to faculties, schools, departments, and individual students as needed.

Academic departments/Schools will provide students with SEN reasonable adjustments to enable them to compete on equal footing with fellow students but without compromising academic standards. Various departments e.g. SAO, host departments, subject offering departments, the Office of Undergraduate Studies, will jointly provide necessary special support and an equitable learning environment to students with SEN.

Resources for Strengthening Capacity towards SEN Support

SAO offers workshops, online learning materials and various activities to the PolyU community to facilitate support and communication with students with SEN and to promote inclusion awareness on campus.  Staff and students are encouraged to make good of these resources.

Quality Assurance

To ensure SEN students have due support and to identify any service gaps promptly, SAO outreaches to these students in every semester, arranges meetings with them every year to collect their feedback and conducts an annual survey to gauge their satisfaction level with SEN support provided by the University.

The Network on Students with Special Needs (NSSN), chaired by the Dean of Students or his/her delegate and comprised of representatives from about 25 academic and non-academic units of the University, has been established to facilitate the provision and coordination of SEN support.

If you have any feedback or questions regarding SEN support, please do not hesitate to contact us via email at sen.support@polyu.edu.hk or by phone at 2766 6800.