When I’m planning a new course, I need to think about all sorts of things, such as how the department can handle the number of students we would expect to attract, how we could provide the placements and practical teaching the students would need, and so on. Am I really legally obliged to think about what disabled students in three years time might have trouble with if they took the course?
The Code of Practice (revised 2007) which accompanies the Disability Discrimination Act Part IV lists curriculum design as one of many University services, in the delivery of which discrimination is to be avoided. There are four types of discrimination: direct, failure to make reasonable adjustments, disability-related discrimination and victimisation. The most relevant one here is the failure to make reasonable adjustments. The duty to make reasonable adjustments is an anticipatory duty. Designing a course or programme of study provides a perfect opportunity to anticipate the adjustments which disabled people might need in future.
The Public Sector Duty to Promote Disability Equality (2005) is a further, relevant piece of legislation. Promoting equality of opportunity for disabled people and eliminating discrimination and harassment of disabled people are central to the general duties of the Public Sector Duty. One of the specific duties is the requirement to undertake assessments of the impact of existing and proposed activities, especially the University’s key activities, on disabled people. It would be hard to argue that designing courses and programmes of study is not such a key activity. The purpose of doing an impact assessment is so that any potential negative impact on, in this case, disabled people can be avoided, in advance. Put simply, if designing a course one way rather than another would improve its accessibility to disabled people, then wherever possible, that’s the course design that should be chosen.
It’s one thing to give a student an extra hour for an exam. But can it really be reasonable to expect us to totally revise a degree programme for one student?
The following factors are relevant to considerations about reasonableness:
● the need to maintain academic and other prescribed standards
● the financial resources available to the responsible body
● grants or loans likely to be available to disabled students (and only
disabled students) for the purpose of enabling them to receive student
services, such as Disabled Students’ Allowances
● the cost of taking a particular step
● the extent to which it is practicable to take a particular step
● the extent to which aids or services will otherwise be provided to
disabled people or students
● health and safety requirements
There may indeed be some work associated with the redesign of a curriculum. But the requirement to anticipate noted above means that redesign should be minimised where flexibility is built in from the beginning. Where a course feature needed by a disabled student was not foreseen or foreseeable in advance, and where the curriculum does not readily lend itself to the adjustments suggested, then the institution must at least explore what might be possible. It is worth adding that the DDA Part IV post-16 Education Code of Practice (2007) envisages that more favourable treatment of disabled people will on occasions be necessary in the process of taking account of disabled persons’ disabilities.
Our course is not governed by a professional body. Does this mean that we have a free rein in determining the competence standards we think right for our course(s)?
The DDA amendment regulations (2006) extended the concept of competence standards to all courses and programmes of study, whether or not governed by the regulations of professional bodies. Competence standards are given a very precise meaning. They must be relevant to the course (i.e. ‘genuine’), and must not lead to direct discrimination against a disabled student when applied. Notably not all competences which are or might be expected of students on courses and programmes of study are competence standards, as described in the Code of Practice.
There is no duty to make reasonable adjustments to competence standards. This is why it is important that HEIs are sure about when a standard is (or is not) a genuine and relevant competence standard. A university would not be able to insist on a ‘high level of physical fitness’, for example, as a competence standard for a Sport and Recreation Management course that is predominantly theory based and does not involve any strenuous physical activity.
The DDA Part IV post-16 Education Code of Practice exhorts education providers to review their competence standards for all courses, and this work would fit well with the public sector duty to ‘impact assess’ key university functions and activities. If a standard is not deemed to be genuinely relevant to a particular course, it is necessary to make adjustments to the standard itself, to ensure that a disabled learner would not be otherwise disadvantaged. Furthermore, education providers should be ready to find alternative ways, if needed, to enable disabled students to demonstrate that they could or have achieve(d) or acquire(d) a particular competence standard.
Copyright: The University of Strathclyde 2000 - 2005
Extracts from this document may be reproduced for education or training purposes on condition that its source is acknowledged.