‘Suddenly I was in a self-catering world’: South African students with visual impairments reflect on the transition from special schools to higher education

Although South Africa has numerous impressive policies for inclusion, the unfortunate fact on the ground is that the rhetoric of inclusion is still not reflected in reality. The majority of students with visual impairments are still in special schools where they have to contend with very poor learning conditions. For example, in 2015, 17 out of the 22 special schools for students with visual impairments did not receive sufficient textbooks. It is therefore not difficult to imagine that many students with visual impairments in South Africa may be ill-prepared for higher education. In this study, we explored the special school memories of 13 students with severe visual impairments from one South African university. In particular, we heard their retrospective recollections of the extent to which they felt prepared for higher education after they completed formal schooling. We listened to their stories in one individual, semi-structured interview and made sense of their accounts through the lens of interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results suggest that students were not prepared for the academic and social demands of higher education.