Accessible HAMK

“We want to be a community where everyone can feel welcome and respected.

HAMK wants to raise accessibility above the statutory minimum defined in a wide range of normative regulations and guidelines. We want to be a community where you can feel welcome and respected from the moment you arrive. We are the equal and non-discriminating HAMK.

When we talk about the principles of accessibility, we mean our approach to encountering diverse people and treating them equally as part of the higher education community. This includes attitudes, teaching, facilities, operating methods, software, and more. It is part of our efforts to live and work together with all our community members and stakeholder, regardless of culture, customs, language, gender, ethnicity or roles, to promote everyone’s well-being.

Accessibility concerns all of us: personnel, students and stakeholder; we are both actors and objects of action at the same time.

We benefit from the opportunities offered by digitalisation in teaching, guidance, research and all types of work. Our goal is to provide all members of our community with easy access and an accessible user experience when using digital services, regardless of their skills and any limitations they might have.

We build an accessibility plan according to HAMK’s operating methods: communally and including all actors. Our plan is based on the accessibility of the physical learning and operational environment, accessible digital solutions, services and environments, and accessible communication. Accessible services and content production are built upon them in all HAMK operations. By preparing the accessibility plan in a participatory manner, we want to ensure that as many HAMK members as possible have up-to-date and high-quality competence in accessibility.

We are not there yet, but we are determined to get there.”

Rectors Pertti Puusaari and Heidi Ahokallio-Leppälä