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Project Partners. Second International Q4S Conference Sofia September 29 th 2011. The Qatrain ‘Story’. Dr Val Chapman (National Teaching Fellow) Q4S Project Coordinator University of Worcester, UK. UK Higher Education up until early 1990s.
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Second International Q4S ConferenceSofiaSeptember 29th 2011 The Qatrain ‘Story’ Dr Val Chapman (National Teaching Fellow) Q4S Project Coordinator University of Worcester, UK
UK Higher Education up until early 1990s “We don’t have a problem with students with disabilities …” “…we don’t have any.”
A Postcard from Australia • Mike Adams (2001) described some of the cases that had been brought under the 1992 UK Disability Discrimination Act • He reported that many cases won against institutions were related to teaching, learning and assessment • The report stated that few cases ever reach the courts having been settled out of court financially by the university to avoid publicity
UK Disability Legislation A driver for change? Or a toothless tiger?
International Legislation • The legislative and regulatory framework provided by the United Nations (UN) recognises disability as a socially created problem. • This social perspective on disability is reflected in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2001. • The ICF ‘mainstreams’ the experience of disability and recognises it as a universal human experience; it notes that every human being can undergo ‘a decrement in health and, thereby, experience some disability’.
How many 16-64 year olds in the 25 EU countries have a disability? 15.7% 7% 3.7% 10.2%
From disinterest to disability support ‘The greatest barrier to following any course or profession are other people. They often need to be converted, but after seeing a disabled student become successful, they are often the strongest advocates of accepting another student with a disability.’ Jones, A. V. & Hopkins, C. (2003)
www.q4s.euproviding support for young people, including those with disabilities, in mainstream post 16 education
Q4S: Google analytics Website launched in June 2011. As at September 26th 2011 Q4S: • has received over 11,292 visits from 105 countries • 97,680 page views • average time spent by users when visiting the site: 7 minutes 09 seconds.
Bulgaria www.qatrain4students.eu
Greece www.qatrain4students.eu
UK www.qatrain4students.eu
Turkey www.qatrain4students.eu
Impact on policy and practice in UK • Use of Q4S has been included in a Department for Education (DfE) tender to take Early Support from 0-19 years, this is the Government’s mechanism to improve services for disabled children and their families. The consortium (which includes National Children’s Bureau, Achievement for All, National Autistic Society, Scope, Sense, RNIB and many others) is led by Dr Kim Bevan OBE, Early Support Trust. • The Department for Works and Pensions has commissioned Techdis to develop an ‘employabliity toolkit’. Following Val’s dissemination email to the DWP, she has been asked to liaise with staff at Techdis to determine how best to integrate Q4S into the toolkit. Initial meeting took place on Sept 22nd 2011 in Sheffield.
Impact on policy and practice at European level • Dear Val Chapman • I received your email via a colleague at my university, the University of Vienna. I am the Disability Officer here. After looking through the website www.q4s.eu I can only congratulate you! It is very clear and contains a lot of useful information. I will surely recommend it to my students as well as our lecturers! • Kind regards, • Birgit Virtbauer
Impact on policy and practice at European level • Roger Blamire: Coordinator of European Schoolnet's SEN working group of education ministry officials and agencies:“It's a useful set of resources and has much of relevance for teachers and learners in secondary schools. I've forwarded your message to members of the working group and we should be able to discuss how to make use of them at our next meeting (Oct 14th - after the end of the project I guess). I hope the materials don't disappear when the project ends as they deserve to be maintained and developed further - particular on the ICT dimension as that is one of our focus areas. We have a new project starting later this year (SENNET) on improving awareness among mainstream teachers of ICT for learners with special needs.