Web Accessibility of the Universities at the Central African Monetary and Economic Community (CEMAC)

Abstract

Internet penetration in the world is increasing every year, and universities are taking advantage by providing digital services to their communities. Approximately 66.3% of the world's population and 33.9% of Africa's population have access to the Internet. However, 15% of the world's population lives with some form of disability and cannot equally enjoy the web. In Africa, there are approximately 80 million people with disabilities. Equal access to the web is a human right under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and a key aspect of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The purpose of this study is to raise awareness about web accessibility in central Africa region with the hoped to promote digital inclusion of all citizens, leaving no one behind. The main research objective is to determine the level of compliance of universities in the Central African Monetary and Economic Community (CEMAC) against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. This is accomplished by evaluating web accessibility of home pages of 45 higher education institutions of CEMAC, selected from Webometrics portal, with automated tools (Mauve++ and Lighthouse). The results show that universities from CEMAG region do not comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA and that stakeholders need to make great efforts to reverse this situation.