“Disabled people are underrepresented in higher education and disabled students in higher education have somewhat worse outcomes from higher education than non-disabled students. Students with a disability are more likely to drop-out of courses and those that finish their degree tend to have lower degree results; in 2016/17 a lower proportion of UK disabled students were awarded a first or upper second-class degree than those without a reported disability.” Bolton and Hubble (2021:3)
I have spent this week trying to find statistics on how many students with physical disabilities are currently studying practical courses at university. I was quite surprised that this information is not easy to find. Maybe no one is collecting data on specific types of courses, as I was only able to find information on students as a whole. The last data collection that was publish that I could find is from the UK parliament website which shows that in 2019, only 2.5% of students in the UK were students with a multisensory, medical or physical disabilities. I’ve not been able to find out what percentage of those are just with physical disabilities or mobility issues. Academic courses may find it much easier to be accessible for students with physical disabilities as they are mostly taught in lecture theatres and now increasingly online.
As said by Bolton and Hubble “Disabled people are underrepresented in higher education” (2021:7) and those with physical are among the most underrepresented. There are many more studies abut students with learning differences and the awareness is much higher. When I first started thinking about my action research project, I initially intended to look at identifying barriers for all students with disabilities, but the realisation hit that there is more awareness for students with learning differences and neurodiversity, and what barriers there are for them. This underrepresented group of students who have physical disabilities or mobility issues who are not currently seen at LCF, and why are they not seen? why are they not there? As stated by Shaw (2021)”It is critical to identify the barriers faced by disabled H.E. students still denied the socially just opportunity to achieve their potential and make a positive contribution to society.”
References
Bolton, P and Hubble, S. (2021) Support for disabled students in higher education in England Available at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8716/ Accessed 25th November 2023
Shaw, A., (2021). Inclusion of disabled Higher Education students: why are we not there yet?. International Journal of Inclusive Education, pp.1-19. Available at https://www-tandfonline-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2021.1968514 [Accessed] 24th November 2023.