Higher Education

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I must start my intervention today by drawing the attention of the House to my declaration of interests. That is because I would like to talk primarily about a Written Statement made on Monday by the Minister’s department about the future of the disabled students allowance. The disabled students allowance is dear to my heart—I remember crossing swords with the noble Lord, Lord Young, over failures of it a good few years ago—and I am now chairman of a company which is a fairly big player in the field. The announcement was that the disabled students allowance is to be reformed. Effectively, judging by the Statement, that means that savings are to be sought, if we may use that language here.

In the opinion of the company, the announcement did not come out of a clear blue sky but there will be major structural changes. However, I hope that there will also be opportunities, particularly given the fact that the registration of providers of goods and services under DSA may well be a way to ensure that we get a more professional approach here. I hope that we might hear a little more about the thinking on that today because, if we are to continue to support—or suggest that we should support—those with disabilities, we need to know exactly what we are doing here.

My second declaration of interest, which I am afraid will take slightly longer, relates to the fact that those with specific learning difficulties or dyslexia get two mentions in that Statement but nobody else gets any. Those two mentions are probably because 10% of the population are dyslexic or have specific learning difficulties. Why we cannot use just one term I do not know—“dyslexia” is certainly a better way of expressing it than using four words, even if it is one long word. We get mentioned twice in the Statement and the general gist is that those with dyslexia cannot expect to receive the full package of support as standard, which will now be available only to those with a higher complexity of needs. Let us make no mistake about it: this is a very big part of this sector, as it should be if we do not challenge the basic demographic of this hidden disability. There are other hidden disabilities which are not mentioned here but which are out there and, probably, underrepresented as well.

However, the suggestion in the Statement is that this is such a common condition in its less extreme cases—those with higher functioning and less impairment in their ability to channel the written word—that, under the Equality Act, they should receive help from the institution itself. I do not know whether those institutions have even started to take on board the complexity of what they are being asked to do here. The reason is that there is a standard series of software packages, which access voice-to-text or text-to-voice combinations with spelling support structures, and which can now be downloaded into virtually all computers. But—and this is a very big but—I say from personal experience of using it, and from my company’s experience, that it is quite easy to fail to get the best out of that software. If you are not getting the best out of it, students who are undertaking study and have to present written work will not be able to do that to the fullest of their ability. That is where it really comes in: how is this supposed to work?

How is that level of responsibility to be interpreted by those institutions of higher education? In the Statement, the Equality Act is mentioned, but how are we to make sure that they have the structure in place to deliver the law if they are now the people who will deliver it? That is quite something—and it is at the lower functioning end, with people who might just struggle through. However, if you do not give them the help it will cost them a grade or two, or possibly even lead to failure. These are not people who obviously cannot write at all, or cannot do so on a functional level. These are people who struggle and will always have that little bit more difficulty. How are we going to assist them? They may well be the majority, as this is a spectrum, but how are they going to get through? What is the structure and nature of the support that you should expect to be given?

The Statement goes on to say that those with more complex needs will receive help. Presumably, the implication is: help similar to the package that they are getting today, which usually means a computer plus the software. How are we to decide who has the more complex needs? Will it be somebody who has the old statement or the new education, health and care plans? If anybody has those plans and they are dyslexic, are they defined and getting this full package of support? Who will make that assessment and who will interpret it properly? If that is not to be done and there is not some degree of ambiguity about it, there will be a whole new area of challenge occurring. Where, for instance, does the university or institute of higher education hand over this responsibility? We need to know that to make the future system work properly. It will probably be slightly easier because the people might be those who, for instance, have to use voice-to-text technology, as I do, to produce all their work. If that is to be the case, can we please have a definition of what goes on and how that responsibility will be interpreted? However, the first category will be the most difficult.

I will leave your Lordships with one thought. It is quite common now for universities to discover somebody who is working very hard but underachieving compared to their spoken responses. They may then go for diagnosis and assessment, and then receive the package of access. How can a university or any other institute of higher education have the structure in place to do that without considerable planning within their internal structures? If you fail or drop grades, careers close up to you. I have spoken to a Member of another House—indeed, I am supposed to be in a meeting with him in about 20 minutes, which I shall not get to—who had two sons, both of whom were dyslexic. One took the help and got the career that he wanted; one did not, because he was proud, and did not get the jobs that he wanted. Those drop-offs in grades are very important to the individual concerned. They also mean that we do not get the best return from any investment which we make in the university system, in terms of those students.

I hope that we will clarify this because, if this one condition is important enough to be mentioned twice in this Statement about the future, I am sure that it is also important enough to have a really careful assessment of how this will be implemented in practice.