Access to learning:

1

• Access to learning
• the important voice of
• disabled staff and students
• Dr Sue Cavanagh
• ECU Policy Adviser Disability

2
DDA Specific duties

• The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 has placed
  a specific duty on higher education institutions
  to involve disabled staff and students in
  reviewing its policies and practices, to ensure
  they are not discriminatory and to anticipate
  requirements.

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DDA Specific duties

• This obligation extends to teaching and learning
  policies and practices. Particularly through the
  requirement to involve disabled people in impact
  assessment of existing and proposed curricula and
  course programmes.
• This duty therefore needs to be understood by
  academic staff and course developers.

4
DDA Specific duties

• The principles behind the Disability Equality
  Duty are based on the social model of disability.
  
• This recognises that it is often not the
  impairments or conditions experienced by
  individuals that prevent them succeeding in their
  chosen path, but the unnecessary barriers that
  have been constructed and embedded, often
  unintentionally, within institutions and wider
  society.
• These barriers can be physical or attitudinal,
  but if left unchallenged they can perpetuate
  institutional discrimination and social
  exclusion.

5
DED and academic staff responsibilities

• Review practices and adopt an inclusive teaching,
  learning and assessment approach
• Ensure they have had appropriate training to make
  their practices more accessible
• Ensure they understand their duties to make
  reasonable adjustments and anticipate need
• Ensure that they are aware of the advice and
  support services available for disabled students

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Benefits of disabled staff and student involvement

• Disabled staff and students can help academic
  staff eliminate discriminatory practices by
• Identifying the barriers to participation,
  achievement and success formal policies and
  informal practices
• Identifying ways that things could be done more
  inclusively and that will promote disability
  equality
• Giving feedback on priorities for change to
  enable more effective planning

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Barriers to involvement

• Evidence from the ECU DES progress survey and
  feedback service suggests that genuine
  involvement of disabled staff and students is not
  taking place satisfactorily in many institutions.
• Lack of awareness about the responsibility of the
  whole institution and of all staff to end
  unjustified discriminatory practice

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Barriers to involvement

• Lack of commitment to provide adequate training
  and resources to bring about better understanding
  and positive change
• Lack of understanding of the difference between
  consultation and involvement
• Under declaration of disability status from both
  staff and students

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Overcoming the barriers lack of awareness and
commitment

• Access support and information from disability
  teams at the ECU, HEA and AonA workshops,
  publications
• Bring in trainers and consultants or use in-house
  resources to raise awareness levels throughout
• Utilise internal and external champions to help
  make the case
• Seek out examples of good practice from other
  institutions and adapt these

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Overcoming the barriers involvement v
consultation
Involvement is an active process that should
occur at key stages of the development of plans
and services (DRC Code Chapter 3). It does not
have to happen throughout. e.g. impact
assessment of new course proposals would be an
example of a key stage. But informal practices
also need to be considered eg through
satisfaction surveys
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Overcoming the barriers involvement v
consultation

• Involvement is stronger than consultation and
  should enable key decision-making and change
  to be influenced so that it is not a token
  exercise
• Involvement should include the full diversity
  of disabled people both in terms of impairments
  and other aspects of identity- race, gender etc.

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Overcoming the barriersunder declaration
How can an institution involve disabled staff and
students, if does not know who they are or if
they are willing to get involved?


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Overcoming the barriersunder declaration
HEFCE Statistics 2003- 4 (declared impairment or
long term health condition) Students 4.8 of
first year students 845,000 60 unseen
such as mental health Staff 2.3 out of
270,000 employed People of working age in UK
19 (7 million) OFNS Labour Force Survey 2005


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Overcoming the barriersunder declaration

• May involve culture change so that staff and
  students feel confident that they will not be
  discriminated against and see purpose of
  involvement
• Not just an HEI problem, but HEI can lead the way
• Disabled staff and employees have rights but 52
  of those protected by the DDA do not perceive
  themselves to be disabled
• Many impairments and conditions are unseen but if
  not disclosed not protected by DDA

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Overcoming the barriersunder declaration

• ECU programme of action for 2007 aims to support
  action to increase staff disclosure. Not just
  important to feed into involvement process, but
  as a powerful indicator of culture change.
• ECU wants to work with regional EO networks to
  support setting up virtual forums for disabled
  staff to address the issue of under disclosure
  and to provide mutual support
• Unison is currently piloting a scheme of
  developing disabled staff networks in FE which
  ECU will repeat in HE if successful

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ECU publications

• Involving Disabled People in Disability Equality
  Schemes
• Disability Legislation Practical Guidance for
  Academic Staff (ECU/HEA)
• http//www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/guidance
  publications/
• Towards Disability Equality using statistics and
  data categories for monitoring
• http//www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/updates/
  
• DEP bulletin
• www.ecu.ac.uk