5. Their son wants to participate in an extra curricular activity organized by a school club. However, the club believes that he may not be able to perform the activity due to his leg disability. Can the club refuse to allow him to participate in the activity?
The school should not make any assumptions regarding the abilities of students with disabilities and should not arbitrarily identify such students as not being capable of performing certain types of activities. Instead, the school should discuss special needs with disabled students themselves, and/or their parents, and determine what is necessary to accommodate those needs.
The school may consult the Education Department, special schools or rehabilitation organizations when necessary with a view to providing reasonable accommodation for the students with disabilities and ensuring that extra curricular activities are flexible enough to meet the individual needs of the students. Reasonable a ccommodation is considered as measures or action taken in order to provide equal opportunities for students with disabilities, such as the provision of aids, facilities or services to meet their individual needs.
The school may have violated the Disability Discrimination Ordinance if it does not provide reasonable accommodation to disabled students unless providing such accommodation would impose unjustified hardship on the school (e.g. the school would suffer financial difficulty when providing such accommodation).
In order to eliminate discrimination against students with disabilities, educational establishments should set up a separate policy regarding this matter, or include in their existing policy a specific section on the goal of equal opportunities for students with disabilities. For details of such policies, please refer to section 11 in the Code of Practice on Education under the DDO (issued by the Equal Opportunities Commission).
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