Will deaf people be able to access government scheme on apprenticeships?

I popped along to the Houses of Parliament yesterday – as you do – to a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Disability. This is a group of MPs and peers with a stated interest in disability issues who hold meetings once in a while. Yesterday’s meeting was on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, a hefty piece of legislation that is now making its way through the House of Lords.

Lots of Lords and Ladies came, including Lord Young, who is the Government’s spokesperson on apprenticeships in the Lords. He was challenged on the issue of entry requirements for apprenticeships. The Government is creating a new scheme whereby it will guarantee young people an apprentice if they meet certain requirements.

Unfortunately for deaf young people, these certain requirements include GCSEs in English and Maths. Putting to one side the issue of whether deaf children get the right support to be able to fulfill their potential and achieve these GCSEs, is a deaf person whose first language is British Sign Language necessarily going to get or want a GCSE in English?

And yet the scheme seemingly excludes them, ignoring the fact that deaf young people will be able to make use of interpreters, communication support, etc. in an apprenticeship, as in any other job.

I was hoping that Lord Young might stand up and cry out “now that’s what I call discrimination” but instead, he made some warm words about the need to support disabled young people. But he also taked about the need to “strike a balance” and ensure that apprenticeships are “useful” to employers. So it doesn’t seem likely that the Government will abandon the principle of entry requirements anytime soon.

But we don’t plan to shut up about it, and will be continuing to press for these entry requirements to be relaxed for people with disabilities. So watch this space.

New laws on equality

The Equality Bill has been published today. It’s a new key piece of legislation that aims to streamline all existing discrimination legislation into one document. It’s already pretty controversial and it looks like it’s going to be a hot potato for the Government going forward. I’ve already heard a rumour that one peer is already planning to do everything he can to sabotage the whole thing…

Oh, and it’s a monster Bill. Parliament have tried something new with this one by publishing the explanatory notes to the Bill alongside each clause. It’s an interesting idea. Unfortunately it means that the whole thing is well over 500 pages along and separated into two volumes. I got my daily workout just from lifting it up from the printer.

Our interest in this is mainly to make sure that disabled people don’t lose out from all this streamlining. Whilst I can see the logic, will disabiity equality get the same level of attention if it’s going to be considered alongside racial equality, gender equality and so on. How do we make sure it doesn’t become a box ticking exercise?

The Bill also contains a few clauses around accessible examinations for disabled people which we’ll be taking a close look at.

I need to get busy reading it all… Wish me luck.

Access to examinations for deaf students

The Disability Discrimination (General Qualifications Bodies) (Relevant Qualifications, Reasonable Steps and Physical Features) (Amendments) Regulations 2008 came into force on the 24th October.

Wait, don’t go yet! It may have the most uninspiring name ever given to a set of regulations, but these regulations are an important step forward in a long running saga over examinations. It’s a saga that involves breathtaking stupidity, a complete and utter misunderstanding of what disability equality means, and deaf people being punished for not being able to hear in an exam.

To give a bit of history, around 3 years ago, examination awarding bodies suddenly decided to drop provisions in place that were in place to help disabled candidates access examinations. It basically meant that if an exam was not accessible, a disabled student would have their marks wiped off their total grades. Apparently, the ‘integrity’ of the exams was more important. And, they also thought it would be in line with disability equality legislation. It makes you wonder about the people who look after the exams system really. At no point were disabled people or charities consulted about these changes.

Working with other charities, NDCS led a campaign to reverse this. The awarding bodies finally backed down last year, and agreed to re-instate exemptions. This bascially meant that a disabled candidate could opt out of a part of an exam if they were not able to access it, and get marks for the bits that they did do.

The problem with this is that if a student only does 70% of the exam, there is 30% that he/she won’t get marks for no matter how hard they try. This is where the new regulations come in – they introduce ‘enhancements’ so the marks that a student gets for the bit they did do is treated as if it is was the whole 100% of the exam. In practice, this was already being done and the new regulations just explicitly confirm that this in line with disability equality.

It’s an important step forward. But I’m not popping champagne corks just yet.

Firstly, the original draft of the regulations would also have included ‘certificate indications’. This is basically where if a disabled student is unable to access an exam, their certificates would list all the bits they did and all the bits they didn’t do. We felt it was unfair – it is not the student’s fault if the exam is designed in a way which forces them to have an exemption. We also felt it would stigmatise disabled students. If you were an employer, would you be more or less likely to employ a person whose qualifications resemble Swiss cheese?

Over the summer, we had to do a bit of lobbying to get the reference to certificate indications removed from the regulations. We won that battle. Though certificate indications are still in use, including them in the regulations would have resulted in them being widespread. Now they are only to be used as a last resort. There remains a debate going on over the long-term place of certificate indications in the system.

Secondly, and more importantly, a lot of this still feel likes tinkering at the edges without there being a more fundamental look at the examinations system. If examinations were truly accessible to disabled people, designed in flexible ways that allow them to demonstrate their abilities, there would be no need for exemptions, for enhancements or for certificate indications. Awarding bodies have been far too slow to think about this.

To be fair, there appears to be moves in this direction and there have been some positive meetings recently. But one still gets the impression that awarding bodies still don’t quite ‘get it’, and would love us to stop standing up for the rights of disabled children so they can go back to their ‘pure’ system of exams where if you can’t access an examination, tough. I find it depressing that the people with such control over people’s life chances, appear so relucant to enable and empower disabled people.

It’s very depressing indeed. I would grade the regulations as an OK effort. But the awarding bodies really need to buck up their attitudes in the long-run. And we need to remain vigilant.

What does Cath the deaf Cat think?

I’ve been meaning for a while to do a blog about those Leonard Cheshire adverts made by the Creature Comforts people that challenge people to change the way they think about disability – especially after a new advert appeared featuring a deaf cat that goes by the name of Cath.

And then my friend Tina beat me to it. Pesky Tina. Anyhow, rather than repeat it all, I invite you to take a look at her posting on this which is well-worth a read and sums up a lot of the frustrations that deaf children feel.

Take a look at the advert featuring the deaf cat here (Cath appears in the same advert as the shrimp). It links to what I said in my last blog posting – of teachers talking in a really patronising way. I think it’s a great campaign that makes a serious point in a fun and creative way. Hopefully, it will go someway to addressing the attitudes and preconceptions that many people have about deaf children and adults.

Incidentally, Tina has an impossibly cute hearing dog for deaf people called Smudge. Smudge has his own blog – Just Smudge. Despite being a dog, Just Smudge still manages to get my blog hits than I do! Maybe if I had cute curly locks all over my body too, things would be different…