>b>POLICIES OF ACCESS AND MAINTENANCE FOR DEAF STUDENTSIN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

This article discusses the access and maintenance policies in Higher Education, specifically involving the trajectory of deaf students enrolled at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), between 2002 and 2015. More notably from the 2000s, the design and implementation of educational policies concerning inclusion in the educational system reflected a significant increase in the inflow of deaf students in Higher Education in Brazil, in contrast to the historical exclusion seen in previous decades.The data analyzed show visible numerical growth, but obscure the differences in the required policies for bilingual deaf and people with hearing loss that do not require changes in the linguistic situation of the institution, but only technical, technological and/or methodological resources for their school inclusion process. We conclude that the UFPR institutionalization of bilingual education policy (Sign Language and Portuguese) was nurtured by the presence of the first deaf students who use the Sign Language as their first language, in undergraduate courses Sign Language and post graduation. The importance of legal provisions in the government and institutional levels, the work of support centers for people with special needs in universities, the enforcement of the deaf movements in different policies, the work of Sign Language interpreters, translators and bilingual professionals, together with the role of deaf students in the planning and execution of actions that include them, are some of the aspects highlighted in this work as a core for the inclusion process.