Fostering diversity The School’s second student with disability shares his experience of overcoming the odds to study for an MPA. Text • Alexander Pforte
T
he Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy strives for diversity in its student body. Recently, Muhammad Joni Yulianto, a blind student from the village of Sirau, in Central Java, Indonesia completed his Master in Public Administration at the School.
out: “If the school is willing to develop a standard procedure for accommodating students with disabilities, I am sure the LKY School will become the best school for the disabled among the ASEAN countries.”
At 31, Joni has overcome more challenges and obstacles than most of his peers. He credits his perseverance to a supportive family, particularly a father who clearly delineated the choices for him early in life. He urged Joni when he was eight to consider leaving home to study at a special school or be simply left at home. “It was not easy since I had to live isolated from my peers and be separated from brothers and parents,” Joni recalls, adding that it was the best decision of his life. “That was a very important phase in my life when I really learned what the life of being a disabled child, a child with visual impairment, was,” he said.
Joni’s sponsoring organisation, the Nippon Foundation, introduced him to the School and its programme. The foundation also sponsors the ASEAN Institute on Disability and Public Policy, or IDPP, which was established in 2010. IDPP relies on several academic institutions (including the LKY School) to provide masters degrees, executive education and certificate programmes, outreach and capacity building, as well as collaborative research to people with disabilities. Although the LKY School’s role in the IDPP is primarily to offer executive education and collaborative research, it wants to offer masters degrees to the disabled.
Joni was inspired to pursue a second graduate degree after he realised the importance of sound policy making in his fight for the rights of the disabled. Being only the second disabled person to date to study at the School, Joni said his earnest hope was that by sharing his experience with Global-is-Asian, “hundreds more (people with disability) will come in the future”.
All said, Joni enjoyed the diversity of the student body and was grateful for the strong networks he forged in the time he spent here. He intends to continue working in the field of disability but with an added focus on public policy, either in collaboration with an NGO or the government in his native Indonesia.
Undeterred by his difficulties, Joni is single-minded about pursuing an education on an equal footing as his able-bodied counterparts. He said: “It is always clear in my mind that I can do what they could do. Therefore I will never give up because of my disability. And, my motivation is, since I cannot see with my eyes, I have to widely open my mind.” Though the School was not designed for his needs, it did try to cater to his requirements. Even then, Joni said he encountered stigma and prejudice from some schoolmates and staff, “all of which hurt students with disabilities”. He said some faculty members felt overwhelmed by the prospect of having to accommodate to the needs of a disabled person in their lectures. This, he says, reflected the need for faculty to go to greater lengths to make life more comfortable for the disabled at the campus. He astutely points
Joni feels there is room for society to be more inclusive, so that the disabled would not only have equal opportunities but also an equal footing to contribute to society. He observes: “Everyone is different. As humans with full dignity, however, we are equal and therefore it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure our equality. With better policy and better understanding of disability, I believe that in the future Asia will become an inclusive region for the disabled people.” Muhammad Joni Yulianto, from the village of Sirau, in Central Java, Indonesia graduated with an MA in Disability Studies from the University of Leeds, UK in 2008 and a Bachelor of Education (Special Education) from the State University of Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2003. He completed a Master in Public Administration at the LKY School in July 2011.