Transcript Looking Forward to the Future:

Looking Forward to the Future:
The impact of disability
equality schemes in Higher
Education
Mike Adams – 24 October 2007
Issues I Will Address
• The DED and legislation more generally,
and its impact on HE
• The equalities discourse – what it means
for HE and disability
• Education outcomes for disabled people
• Education and its wider impact on
improving the lives of disabled people.
Joint ECU / DRC DED Work
• 21 HEI Disability Equality schemes sampled
• 38% assessed as compliant
• 62% assessed as non-compliant
• The stats compared well in relation to other
sectors
Emerging Key Issues
• Involvement of disabled people
• Action planning
• Impact assessments
• Information gathering
Equality Models
• Individual justice model
• Group justice model
• Identity model
• Participatory model
Developing a Participatory Model
• Practice that works
• Proactive use of legislation
• Investing in staff
• Working in partnership
Education Outcomes
• Elimination of unlawful discrimination
• Peer support and person-centred learning
• Positive interaction between disabled and
non-disabled learners
• Promoting positive attitudes and higher
expectations within education institutions
• Adequate funding to maximise capacity
• Better transitions
Improving Life Chances
• In the UK, there are 6.8m disabled people of working age - 1 in 5 are
not working as much as their peers.
• Only 50% of disabled people are in work compared to 80% of nondisabled people.
• Disabled people are not earning as much – they are more likely to
be in manual and low-skilled occupations and less likely in
managerial, professional and highly-skilled occupations.
• In 2004/05 one quarter of all children living in poverty had a parent
who was disabled or had a long term health condition.
• In 2004 21% of disabled people aged between 16-24
had no qualifications whatsoever, compared to 9% of
non-disabled people of the same age – an 11% gap.
• Disabled young people are 40% as likely to go into
higher education aged 18 as non-disabled 18 year olds.
• The number of disabled students participating in higher
education has since increased year on year – yet
participation by non-disabled people has grown much
more rapidly over the same period.
Conclusions
• Momentum going in the right direction
• HE one of the leading sectors in
innovation and development – but we
must not get complacent
• The ESRC-funded project is a key piece of
the jigsaw.