Learning about disability
When it comes to disability, teachers are still not equal.
Equality does not come easily. It took the women's movement to put gender equality on the public agenda, and despite improvements, there are still glass ceilings. Race relations legislation helped to focus attention on ethnicity, but black staff remain under-represented. Those who do have jobs in further and higher education are employed mainly as learning support workers, part-time tutors and lecturers rather than as managers or principals.
All too often the rights of disabled people get considered later. A year after the introduction of the disability equality duty to most lifelong learning provision, and 10 years after John Tomlinson's report, Inclusive Learning, there are clearly efforts to improve things for disabled learners, though cuts in funding make improvements harder to achieve.
Disabled teachers and learning support staff, however, have seen few benefits from the passing of much of the disability legislation. Almost one in five adults have a disabling condition, yet less than 3% of staff in FE declare that they have a disability, and the position in HE is little different. Those who are employed are concentrated in lower-paid positions. As a result, learners in the sector have little chance to see disabled staff as role models.
However, we do not know enough about how many staff have disabilities, nor how it affects their work. In part this is because data collection is poor; in part it is because many staff decline to report disabling conditions to their managers. In some cases this is because they are anxious about job security. Some people who would benefit from support work on regardless, taking pride in their ability to manage without; others still reject the labelling implied in declaration. Some deaf staff at the City Lit centre for deaf people in London say, "I am deaf, not disabled". Then there are progressive conditions that staff may not themselves recognise as disabling.
When the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) introduced anonymous reporting, the numbers reporting disabling conditions soared. Now that all public providers need to include disabled staff alongside learners in their disability equality schemes it will make a real difference.
The scarcity of disabled staff working in post-school education has implications for teacher trainers, for the recruitment and career development strategies of HE institutions, colleges, local authorities, voluntary organisations and private-sector trainers alike. Improving things for disabled staff poses real challenges for providers, who experience here as elsewhere tensions between competing obligations.
The disability legislation makes these issues relevant for all institutions, but there is more to equality than compliance with legislation. Cultures that foster the development potential of all staff, and seek to reflect the full diversity of the communities they serve, make for excellent places to learn.
The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, Niace, has launched a commission on disabled staff in lifelong learning. It plans to improve the data, identify best practice, and offer advice to government, providers and practitioners to help the sector in complying with the duty, and in strengthening cultures and practices. It will gather evidence and prepare an interim report for September, with a final report in the new year.
The commission, which is chaired by Leisha Fullick, has the backing of the government, the LSC, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Disability Rights Commission, and the major professional and representative employer and union organisations in the sector. Its remit covers Wales and England, but we will take evidence from Scotland and Northern Ireland, too.
Most important, it will rely for its authority on properly reflecting the experience of disabled teaching and learning support staff, and of the managers, colleagues and learners who work with them. To that end, Christine Nightingale, who is leading the work at Niace, would be delighted to hear from readers with first-hand experience as staff with disabling conditions, or as managers supporting their effective contribution.