Access to Higher Education for People with Disabilities: A Chinese Perspective

Definition And Background

To start with, let us look at the definitions for disability. In Oxford Dictionary, “disability” is defined as “a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities” or “a disadvantage or handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law”. In the Chinese Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons (LPDP, 1990), people with disabilities are referred to as “Can Ji Ren”, meaning “people who suffer from abnormalities of loss of a certain organ or function, psychologically or physiologically, or in anatomical structure and has lost wholly or in part the ability to perform an activity in the way considered normal.” “Can Ji Ren” as the Chinese definition of people with disabilities refers to those with visual, hearing, speech or physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, multiple disabilities and/or other disabilities.