Disabled students in higher education: policy drivers and tensions

Sheila Riddell

Centre for Research in Education Inclusion & Diversity

University of Edinburgh

Policy drivers in HE Widening access/social inclusion – building social

capital

Increasing efficiency & effectiveness – building human capital

Tensions between social justice & managerialist imperatives

Key question: can managerialist techniques be used to achieve social justice goals?

Widening access to higher education

Shift from elite to mass HE system over two decades: student numbers rapidly increased, unit of resource decreased

Focus on students from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds

Most attention paid to social class- student body more heterogeneous, but still skewed to middle class

80% of students in pre-92 institutions from social classes 1 & 2 – particularly evident at Oxford & Cambridge

HE students with known disability

Year Number of students

Total known to have disability

Percentage

1994-95 323,011 11,162 3.5%

2002-03 351,805 21,285 6%

Proportions of disabled students by HESA category

Type of disability 1994/95 2002/03

Dyslexia 15% 49%

Blind/partially sighted 4% 3%

Deaf/hard of hearing 6% 4%

Wheelchair/mobility difficulties

6% 3%

Personal care support 0.1% 0.1%

Mental health difficulties

2% 3%

Unseen disability 53% 23%

Multiple disabilities 5% 4%

Other disability 10% 11%

Measures to promote widening access for disabled students – managerialist sticks &

funding carrots

QAA Code of Practice – Precepts of good practice

Part 4 DDA – prohibition of discrimination against disabled students & prospective students

Disabled Students’ Allowance & premium funding

Teaching & learning projects, e.g. Teachability & ESCALATE

Importance of institutional context

Policies never neatly translated into practice – process of negotiation and (possibly) subversion at institutional level

Research located in four institutions to investigate local cultures in relation to widening access and managerialism

The four universities University 1: large ancient university, 66% from state

schools, 18% social class 3M or below, 6% disclosed a disability

University 2: small pre-92 (Robbins) university, 91% from state schools, 19% social class 3M or below, 5% disclosed a disability

University 3: small post-92 university, 94% from state schools, 31% social class 3M or below, 10% disclosed a disability

University 4: large post-92 university, 97% from state schools, 4% disclosed a disability

Policy drivers

DDA seen as important in all institutions

… if something is in law then you have to do something about it. (U1 SM3)

Then … the DDA also came into force and … it is not perfect, but it has been a fantastic platform to work from … I can say to people that the rights of disabled people are now enshrined in legislation … it is not a welfare issue any more. (U1 DIS1)

Pre-92 institutions: resistance to widening access agenda

… very few people are going to get up and say so ‘I don’t wish to help disabled students graduate’, and they don’t, but when they are overworked anyway, …then to be asked to go to a lot of trouble for the sake, as I say very often for an individual, or something that will only come up every four or five years, that is a bit of a last straw sometimes. (U1 SM1)

Interviewer: So there’s tension in relation to the widening access agenda?There is enormous tension there yes … you let in a lot of students who perhaps weren’t really as good and can’t do the basic stuff and there is a possibility that the other students suffer because you are spending all the time teaching the first consignment how to spell or how to do simple maths, or something like that. And I think the real problem here is actually what priority people give it in their hearts and I suspect it’s fairly low. Since we are all human, most of us are nice, priority goes up when you are actually confronted by the real live student, but when you are not I think that is low priority as it must be in virtually all institutions. (U1 SM1)

Criticism of Funding Council intervention

I am a great believer in the individual universities being left to sort out their own priorities given all the legislation that there is in this area. I mean if there were no legislation in this area and there was evidence that universities were being dilatory, I can see it would be a reasonable role for the funding council. But since nobody, I don’t think, would deny that the legislation in itself is fairly demanding, I can’t see there’s much role for the funding councils, I wouldn’t really even favour if they are giving more money to us for it unless they actually got that money especially for it out of the government and it was additional to all the other money, I think we should make those decisions. (U1 SM1)

Inhibiting factors

Policies inhibiting inclusion – health and safety, we have got some glorious things to do with fire regulations …RAE probably inhibits it because anything that we require which involves members of academic staff to go an extra mile for a particular student makes it harder for them to deliver on another agenda that we say they have to go an extra mile or two. And I think a third set of policies that inhibit social inclusion …are to do with the efficiency gain culture. You have to do more with less, more with less, more with less. Very hard in that context to say we have got to take even more of our money to upgrade our buildings. (U1 SM2)

Widening access agenda - higher priority in post-92 institutions

I think a lot of students come to us because they know we are fairly sympathetic about dyslexia…So I think people know, and I think it is out and about in the community. Strangely enough, it cuts across bits of the access and widening participation agenda. – friends of mine who have got children who may be at minor public schools or independent schools, also think that we’re pretty sensitive and sympathetic to students who’ve got dyslexia, and they put students in our particular way. So I think there are different bits of the market which have a view about how we support students…and I think they might come for different sorts of disabilities from different places, because of that reputation. (U3 SM1)

Post-92 support for widening access

We genuinely believe in bringing in students who are able to study and achieve regardless of disability. We actively encourage applications from those groups … We have always been regarded as an institution that does attract and encourage students from areas that have students who would not normally enter higher education … they may be students from families who have no tradition of higher education, or they may be students who have learning disabilities, or from disadvantaged backgrounds or have disabilities and have reservations about education. (U4 SM1)

Post-92: less resistance to managerialist agenda

I think that the QAA’s Code of Practice is interesting. I think of it as the carrot, whereas the legislation was the stick version….Quality Enhancement is a way to really make the policies effective. I think QE is very effective amongst academic staff when activity aligns with their principles and most academic staff here would be in principle very keen to support disabled students…The QE has to be of such a nature that people see that it is as worthwhile in that it enables them to do their jobs more effectively, and not to be seen as one more thing that they have to do. (U3 SM2)

Support for learning in higher education initiatives

Wider participation in HE resulted in greater need for learning support

Entirely new concept in pre-92 institutions – much better established in post-92 HEIs and FE Colleges

Assessment practices slower to change – crowded graduate labour market led to higher stakes assessment

Conclusion: Policy drivers & institutional climate

DDA appears to have major impact in all institutions

Less focus on reasonable adjustments in teaching and assessment - concerns about standards & fairness.

Evidence of resistance to widening access agenda in pre-92 institutions – greater support in post-92 HEIs

Resistance associated with opposition to managerialism.

But audit may still play a useful part in raising awareness, highlighting injustice & charting progress