DIVERSASIA - Best practices

The University of Cambridge has had a Code of Practice (CoP) on Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled Students since 2012. This was approved by the Education Committee of the General Board at Cambridge in response to a proposal put forward jointly by the University’s Disability Resource Centre and Educational and Student Policy Section. The CoP sets out the University’s position in relation to its duties to disabled students under the Equality Act 2010 and provides guidance for University and College staff on their responsibilities, providing examples of reasonable adjustments in teaching and learning.

The COP applies to the whole university and is reviewed annually. It includes guidance on requests for alternative modes of assessment, and on understanding competence standards in relation to the Act and to the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

The COP also formalizes the processes used to ensure information related to the support requirements of disabled students is disseminated to the Collegiate University and clarifies matters related to disclosure and confidentiality. In its strategic response to the planned changes to Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs), the University of Cambridge has established a Reasonable Adjustments Fund (RAF). This fund is designed to allow the University to meet the increased requirements and responsibilities placed on it after the recent changes to DSAs, specifically the transfer of all band 1&2 NMH tasks (other than sighted guides), and also to support other drivers to enhance and further develop inclusive teaching and learning practices. The University’s Disability Resource Centre will manage and
administer the fund.

‘The learning environment should be as inclusive as possible, so that the need for individual interventions is the exception, not the rule. Institutions should engage in a continual improvement cycle that develops inclusive practice, with the aim of reducing the number of individual interventions required.’
‘We expect institutions to strive to provide the best possible support for all their students, including their body of disabled students, to continue to remove or reduce the need for individual support through DSAs.’
‘Institutions should not take the continued provision of DSAs as setting the limit to their reasonable adjustments.’ DSAs guidance 2016/17

In addition to the transfer of bands 1&2 tasks the University of Cambridge has decided that it will also offer the NMH tasks of specialist mentoring and specialist 1-1 study skills as part of its standard NMH provision. This will also be managed within the Reasonable Adjustments Fund. The internal nature of the fund means that student support requirements can be assessed in a far quicker manner than via external funding routes, with lead-times reduced from several months to weeks and in some cases days, leading to an anticipated improved student experience and a closer integration of non-medical help support with other internal student support and academic networks, as well as safeguarding systems.
The fund will also allow for flexibility and innovation in the provision of support with group and workshop support for disabled students being added to individual support provision, something which has been requested in feedback from disabled students at Cambridge.

In conjunction with the continued provision of NMH the university is also looking strategically at the further development of inclusive teaching and learning practices via its Centre for Teaching and Learning and through its Learning and Teaching and Digital Education strategies. Cambridge also has a well-established teaching and learning innovation fund.