Disabled Students' Allowances: Visual Impairment

(asked on 5th December 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 16 November 2018 to Question 192091, what steps have been taken to ensure that students with visual impairments are (a) aware that they may be eligible for the disabled students' allowance and (b) do not face financial barriers to accessing that allowance.


Answered by
Chris Skidmore Portrait
Chris Skidmore
This question was answered on 13th December 2018

The Student Loans Company (SLC) provides application forms in braille, and also offers telephone support to those unable to access applications on-line or through hard copy.

Information on Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) is available on direct.gov at https://www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowances-dsas. The direct.gov site encourages any student who is unable to apply online to contact the SLC for assistance.

The SLC works closely with institutions to promote awareness of DSAs by providing quick guides which can be provided to students at open days and by developing working relationships with universities’ own disability services.

All eligible students undertake a Study Needs Assessment, and the SLC pays for the assessor directly from a student’s DSAs general allowance. Students are not expected to pay this cost up-front.

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