This Inside Government Forum provided attendees with an opportunity to understand recent government reforms to the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) and their impact on universities going forward.
Time and date: 08:45 - 16:00, Tuesday 4 July 2017
Venue: The Hatton- etc Venues, London
- David Ruebain, Chief Executive, Equality Challenge Unit
- Philip Connolly, Policy and Development Manager, Disability Rights UK
- Grace Simpson, Higher Education Policy Adviser, HEFCE
- Gregory Boone, Team Leader, Disabled Students’ Allowances, Department for Education (DfE)
- Professor Sue Rigby, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Student Development), University of Lincoln and Member, Disabled Student Sector Leadership Group
Philip’s presentation also highlighted many of Disability Rights UK's policy positions regarding disabled students in higher education
- Regarding the Institutional audit conducted by the Quality Assurance Agency, DR UK recommends that they have a theme of how universities are meeting their new responsibilities towards disabled students.
- DR UK recommends that the concept of Inclusive Practice should be at the core of the new Teacher frameworks – currently being introduced.
- DR UK recommends that the university should make information available to disabled students via their prospectus and websites and feedback on its effectiveness should be sought from disabled students.
- Disability Rights UK believes that every university should have an accessibility policy that contains good practice standards to demonstrate their commitment to their duties and responsibilities.
- DR UK recommends that universities should incorporate their commitments to web accessibility into their programme validation.
- DR UK wishes to see each university adopt a procedure for reviewing reasonable adjustments and ensure that students are aware of this procedure and the means of making a complaint.
- DR UK wishes to see every university has an up to date complaints procedure that includes their commitments to disabled students and the process for taking complaints to the OIA.
- DR UK recommends that SFE fund students to obtain band 1 and 2 NMPH support where they are taking a complaint against the university.
- DR UK recommends that in this environment that universities contract to provide disabled students with advocacy support to progress complaints.