It’s my job to see that the information about our courses and programmes reaches its target audience of potential students. What legal points do I need to think about?
You should remember that the duty to make adjustments is anticipatory. Thus you must think about the potential students for your course, and the range of possible needs they may have in terms of access to your information. The DDA Part IV, Code of Practice revised 2007 gives a useful example at 8.19:
A further education college advertises course details on its website. The website does not allow for text to be enlarged. A man with a visual impairment notifies the education provider that he would like to apply for a course, but that he cannot read the course details on the website. It is likely to be unlawful for the college to refuse to make the website accessible to the disabled man, unless it is prepared to provide him with the same information in an accessible format.
The same Code of Practice says that an education provider would be expected to have the most general information such as prospectuses and course leaflets available in a numbers of formats.
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