16-19 Participation in education

Written Evidence Submitted by The Alliance for Inclusive Education

The Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) is a national campaigning and information-sharing network led by disabled people. ALLFIE campaigns for disabled people to have the right to access and to be supported in mainstream education.

We believe that education should support the development of physical, vocational and academic abilities through mixed-ability tuition so that all students have the opportunity to build relationships with one another.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) has been ratified by the UK Government (June 2009). In Article 24 of the UNCRPD the Government has agreed to provide general, tertiary and vocational education and training for disabled learners (learners with LLDD) without discrimination.

" States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities are able to access general tertiary education, vocational training, adult education and lifelong learning without discrimination and on an equal basis with others. To this end, States Parties shall ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided to persons with disabilities. "

The Coalition Government is now taking forward the implementation phase of the UNCRPD which ALLFIE welcomes. In order to achieve implementation of Article 24 the Government will need to address the barriers that education providers and local authorities currently face in providing mainstream educational and training opportunities for all disabled young people aged between 16 and 19 years of age.

ALLFIE welcomes the Education Select Committee’s ‘Participation of 16-19 year olds in education and training’ inquiry, especially at a time when disabled young people are three times more likely than their non-disabled peers not to be in education, employment or training. ALLFIE hopes the Committee will make recommendations on how to remove the barriers in order to improve academic and vocational achievements of young disabled people aged between 16 and 19 years. Without removing the substantial barriers that disabled young people encounter when wanting to participate in mainstream education, raising the education and training participation age is likely to be meaningless for a great many disabled young people.

What preparations are necessary, for providers and local authorities, for the gradual raising of the participation age to 18 years and what is their current state of readiness?

ALLFIE has evidence that both local authorities and education providers are not ready to cater for the aspirations of a wider range of young disabled people up to the age of 19 years. This is because there are still barriers that local authorities face in fulfilling their duties to provide "choice" of education and training provision for disabled young people aged between 16 and 19 years of age under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act (ASCL).

Currently there is a perverse incentive for further education providers to offer segregated courses focusing on independent living preparation for young disabled people.

This is because:

· Mainstream education providers are financially penalised if they enrol disabled young people onto mainstream accredited courses who then fail the qualification.

· Mainstream education providers have financial incentives to enrol disabled young people onto segregated courses because they are guaranteed their 100% funding allocation.

· Having two separate budgets for learners with learning difficulties and one for everyone else will undermine ASCL’s clause 41 requirement to provide a diverse range of mainstream educational and training courses for all learners (without exceptions) to choose from.

ALLFIE’s recommendations

ALLFIE wants the local authority only to be given one budget for all young people. Further Education providers should be under the same duty as schools to adapt mainstream course syllabuses so that all students can learn together whilst meeting disabled learners’ needs.

ALLFIE does not want local authorities and Further Education providers to be financially penalised if disabled learners do not manage to gain a qualification at the end of a mainstream accredited course.

Evidence

The 2010-11 Young People’s Learning Agency has drafted guidance which allocates an additional 10% funding for education providers who are successful in getting their students to pass their examinations and qualifications. [1] This we believe has restricted the educational and training opportunities available for young disabled people.

ALLFIE recognises that disabled learners like their non-disabled peers want to participate in a wide range of academic, vocational and professional courses covering numerous subject areas. Only 50% of disabled young people are pursuing an educational or training course of their choice. This figure is lower than for their non disabled peers. [2] The Learning and Skills Council in 2008 [3] reported that learners with LLDD wanted to participate in the same range of courses that are on offer to their non-disabled peers. In practice representation of these young disabled people on a diverse range of courses has been limited. This is because there are no clear expectations on mainstream education providers to adapt the curriculum so that disabled young people are able to learn alongside their non- disabled peers on mainstream course options for disabled young people who are working below level 2. The only explicit educational options mentioned are "Learning for Living and Working" / "Learning Foundation" accredited courses. ALLFIE has found evidence showing a great majority of learners with LLDD are being placed on such courses.

The Learning and Skills Council reported in its review of LLDD provision in November 2008 that 41% of learners with LLDD were enrolled onto a Preparation for Living and Work Course. This was four times higher than the largest group of learners with LLDD enrolled on other mainstream courses. The Adult Learning Inspectorate concluded that such courses created a "A key difficulty for many learners at the foundation stage is the poverty of the discrete curriculum . ." [4] . Just two weeks ago the Association of Learning Providers expressed concern about the usefulness of young people having learning foundation qualifications when looking for a job [5] .

"Foundation learning funding is distributed solely for the acquisition of qualifications for young people, to give them specific qualifications which are quite low level and questionably of interest to employers." (Graham Hoyle Times Educational Supplement, 11 February 2011)

ALLFIE believes that the Learning Foundation course content can be integrated into any mainstream educational courses. For example travelling independently can be learnt by learning the route from home to college, cooking skills can be developed through taking part in accredited NVQ level 2 cooking or BTEC OND Hospitality courses, which are available for learners without LLDD. This already happens in mainstream schools whereby the teachers are required to adapt the national curriculum to meet individual pupils’ learning needs and requirements.

Additional Learning Support

Disabled students currently have no right to appropriate support needed to participate in mainstream further education. Local authorities participating in the Right to Control pilots provides direct payments in lieu of social care, Disabled Facilities Grant and Access to Work services. Unfortunately, the further education funding stream has not been included into the pilots, even though there are legal provisions to allow the Secretary of State to issue these regulations. Until the Secretary of State allows local authorities to provide direct payments in lieu of college, disabled learners’ support arrangements will remain inadequate.

ALLFIE’s recommendations

· A legal right for all disabled students to access mainstream educational and training opportunities.

· The Secretary of State for Education to issue regulations allowing for disabled students to have a direct payment similar to the one available in higher education, the Disabled Student’s Allowance.

· The local authorities participating in the Right to Control pilots to be able to offer direct payments in lieu of college support services.

· Individualised budgets to include further and higher education funding streams for disabled students.

· One budget for all learners rather than two separate ones for learners with and without learning difficulties

Evidence

Currently colleges and training providers are responsible for administrating ALS so therefore can control disabled students’ access to certain courses. The college rather than individual student applies for additional learning support. The National Union of Students’ "Finding the Way in FE, Disabled Students Participation in Further Education" report (2010) highlighted disabled students’ dissatisfaction with how the learning support is arranged by their college. Learners requiring support are discriminated against if they want to enrol onto mainstream courses:

"I was also discriminated against because I was not able to access free transport like the students in the special needs section of further education college, because I was deemed to not need this support because I was following a mainstream course…" (NUS 2010)

ALLFIE has heard through its networks how young people are prevented from attending mainstream courses of their own choosing. We suspect this is because a disproportionate amount of additional learning support funding is being used to fund segregated courses for learners with learning difficulties rather than supporting real choice for disabled learners participating in mainstream further education.

Apprenticeships

ALLFIE welcomes the Government’s commitment to provide a greater number of apprenticeships for young people. Since last year some improvements have been made to make apprenticeships more inclusive for young disabled people. The Labour Government’s reconsideration of all young people being required to have 5 GCSEs including Maths and English to gain entitlement for an apprenticeship placement was warmly welcomed. However there are still provisions in the apprenticeships entitlement which could prevent local authorities and education and training providers from supporting disabled young people.

ALLFIE’s recommendations

· The apprenticeships framework should provide flexibility so that disabled young people can pass their apprenticeship. Such flexibility may include duration, hours worked and being required to complete functional numeracy and literacy at level 2 or 3.

· Apprenticeship employment and education support should be provided by one funding stream (i.e. the local authority’s Right to Control pilots.

Evidence

ALLFIE knows many disabled young people who are more than capable of holding down employment without having Maths and English equivalent qualifications. Many well known employers such as TESCO providing apprenticeships opportunities do not require entrants or indeed those completing apprenticeships to have these functional skills qualifications before moving into paid employment, such as being a sales assistant.

Careers Guidance

ALLFIE welcomes the move for local authorities and schools to arrange independent careers guidance and advice if the advisors are well-informed about what mainstream education opportunities are available for young disabled people.

ALLFIE knows anecdotally how poor the information, advice and guidance around careers for young disabled young people can be.

ALLFIE’s recommendation

Local authorities and education providers should have careers officers who are well trained and have high aspirations for their disabled clients.

Evidence

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) ’Staying On‘ report [6] highlighted how careers advisors tailor their advice to what people with a particular impairment ‘should’ do rather than base it on an individual’s aspirations.

"Stereotyping - careers advice, the choice of subjects to study at school and for an apprenticeship, and work experience placements are all subject to stereotyping that tend to have an impact more significantly on distinct groups, including girls, the disabled, the working class and some ethnic minorities. The result is that young people’s options and aspirations are limited at an early age."

The ‘Staying On’ report also notes that disabled young people are not receiving information about opportunities in work-based learning and apprenticeships, and that the information received on further education options is often negative. This is an email ALLFIE received on 3rd February 2011 from a parent about her disabled daughter making transition plans:

"Before Christmas 2010 we'd met with a new Connexions officer.  She was a bit taken aback when she offered Sam a full-time placement post-16 special school and we said "no"....  Bit of a waste of everyone's time.  What was good was Sam’s teacher and teaching assistant were there and the next morning they had loads of ideas to put together a person-centred programme based on what we know works for Sam."  

The EHRC report attributed this lack of information and inadequate guidance to professionals not believing that young disabled people could cope with certain choices as a result of viewing disability through a medical model, resulting in a ‘damage limitation exercise’.

What impact has the Education Maintenance Allowance had on the participation, attendance, achievement and welfare of young people and how effective will the Discretionary Learner Support Fund be in replacing it?

ALLFIE is concerned about the proposed changes in Disability Living Allowance which may prohibit young disabled people from participating in mainstream education. Reducing DLA is likely to lead to greater difficulty for students in pay ing for the additional costs of b eing disabled , such as using transport or paying for items and support which may indirectly enhance their learning experiences whilst at college or undertaking a training course.

ALLFIE does not want young people to be deterred from participating in mainstream education simply because they or their parents cannot afford for them to continue after 16 years of age.

ALLFIE ’s recommendations

· EMA should be reinstated and extended for young people on any course.

· The DLA review should ensure that disabled young people will not be worse off than they would have been when in receipt of Disability Living Allowance .

What impact will raising the participation age have on areas such as academic achievement, access to vocational education and training, student attendance and behaviour, and alternative provision?

Through providing mainstream educational and training opportunities disabled learners are more likely to fulfil their ambitions later on in life in whatever they do, in terms of career path, developing a hobby and preventing the risk of social isolation. All of these assist disabled people to find their role to play in the Big Society which the Coalition Government wants to create.

28th March 2011