Message from the President

After being founded in 1987 as a three-year college for providing higher education to people with hearing and/or visual disabilities, Tsukuba University of Technology made a new start in 2005 as a four-year university. Since then, we have been providing learner-oriented education based on small class sizes, which are better suited to the needs of students with various developmental characteristics. We support our students not only in the classroom, but also in other aspects of their campus lives.

Along with the recent uptrend in university enrollment by students with disabilities, an increasing number of higher-education institutions that accept these students have begun to examine and implement policies that support such students in a rational and thoughtful way. Amid this social change, what is the advantage of Tsukuba University of Technology? The answer is that we not only empower our students with disabilities, but also provide them with superior "education support," in contrast to other institutions' so-called "support for handicapped students" that compensates for their disadvantages in participating in learning and campus life activities. Our system includes helping the students discover their potential and offering an active provision of additional information on which to build a foundation for their acquisition of knowledge. We perform the essential role and function of education with a special awareness, intended to clearly deliver information to students with hearing and/or visual disabilities so that they can absorb information as knowledge, integrate knowledge in various fields, and develop such knowledge into wisdom. The knowledge gained through our practice is shared openly with society through our research. We also serve as a hub of educational support for people with disabilities, developing vertical and cross-sectional assistance for students with disabilities at home and abroad. In order to achieve our goal of building an inclusive society not only nominally but in a true sense, we will continue to take initiatives to further promote a variety of programs, including programs to support students with disabilities who study at other universities, as well as pre-university students with hearing and/or visual difficulties, such as students at special-needs schools, in addition to recurrent education programs for adults with disabilities along with the people around them.

President, Yasushi Ishihara