Aim Higher - Higher Education funding

A groundbreaking partnership between higher education and the voluntary sector is spearheading a new project to highlight ‘hidden’ learning disabilities such as dyslexia and the lesser known dyspraxia and dyscalculia among students.

The University of Westminster is working in partnership with the British Dyslexia Association, the national umbrella organisation for dyslexics, as well as with other universities, colleges and voluntary sector agencies on a half-million pound, two-year study to raise awareness of specific learning difficulties (SpLDs) in schools and colleges.

The need for urgent action was highlighted in recent recommendations from the Government’s National Disability Team, which found that SpLDs are the hardest conditions to identify - with learner assessment often coming late in the academic life of students. Students are often not diagnosed until they have to deal with sophisticated study demands - it is hoped the project will assist students with SpLDs to enter and remain in higher education to fulfil their potential. Katherine Hewlett, project manager at the University of Westminster, who put the proposal for Overcoming Specific Learning Difficulties as a Barrier to Participation together, said:

"We’re aiming to raise awareness in target schools because we’re finding at university that students have come through the educational system without having their disability assessed. It’s estimated that around 70 per cent of disabled students in higher education have a specific learning difficulty that can affect their academic progression and career opportunities. In a wider sense, the project will also serve to raise awareness of the issues surrounding widening participation in higher education for disabled students."

Susan Tresman, British Dyslexia Association Acting Chief Executive and Education Director, said:

"The project aims to show a wide range of higher education practitioners that they all have a responsibility towards students with specific learning difficulties, both to help them reach their potential and under disability discrimination laws. What is particularly exciting about this project is that is brings higher education and the voluntary sector together in a way that is both novel and powerful."

Professor Tresman has already developed a model that identifies factors that influence whether students persist with or withdraw from higher education. This model - called the student value chain - is to be adapted by the project for students with SpLD. The £478,000 project, funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), will initially target London and the Midlands, before being rolled out nationally.

University students who have specific learning difficulties will be recruited to act as role models in schools. A staff development programme will also bring lecturers and others in HE together to discuss best practice. The project is expected to inform the national debate on disability and help schools, colleges and universities comply effectively with the Special Needs and Disability Act 2001.

See also AchieveAbility.
For further information visit www.aimhigher.ac.uk