Since 1st September 2003, colleges of Further & Higher Education have been obliged by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) to supply auxiliary aids and services to disabled students.
John Savva is profoundly deaf. He started his undergraduate degree course in Sept 2005 with the help of a Disabled Students Allowance. He was assessed as needing British Sign Language interpreters at lectures and for group work, and a note-taker at all course related sessions. It was estimated that the standard Allowance would not be adequate by some £10,000, to pay for all his learning support needs.
The Disability Rights Commission’s Code of Practice for providers of post 16 Education envisages “instances when disabled students might need reasonable adjustments to be provided by the institution in addition to those resourced through their disabled students’ allowances”.
The University’s approach was to offer him a maximum, and insufficient, amount of £3,500 per year which they obtained through the Access to Learning Fund. This figure did not take into account his individual needs.
Mr Savva struggled to keep up with his studies, only half of his lectures were interpreted and he was provided with no notetakers. He may have to give up his course if he cannot get sufficient support to meet his needs.
Jocelyn Murphy of the Disability Law Service who is representing John Savva says –
“To my knowledge this is the first case to make use of the auxiliary services provision in the DDA and highlights the barriers deaf students have to undertaking and completing higher education courses”.
Its about time somebody was brought too book regarding auxiliary aids. Most service providers are completely ignoring the need to provide them, we need some case history!!
hi there
i am disgusted by what John went through during his life at University. it is also sad that he have had to drop his course. however, it is also interesting that he took a legal action. But what outcome of action taken so far?
i am pround deaf too and i am going degree too, i bet i am experiencing what John when through, i found it sometime unfair and hard to accept! should fund always be an excuse for university for not proving enough communication support? i wish they could take a few moment to think what it is like to be Deaf.
hi there
i am disgusted by what John went through during his life at University. it is also sad that he have had to drop his course. however, it is also interesting that he took a legal action. But what outcome of action taken so far?
i am pround deaf too and i am going degree too, i bet i am experiencing what John when through, i found it sometime unfair and hard to accept! should fund always be an excuse for university for not proving enough communication support? i wish they could take a few moment to think what it is like to be Deaf.
I hate when universities try to low ball accommodation costs. As though they were that high because the student was trying to get away with something. I worked for the University of California Berkeley for a while being in charge of all of their physical accommodations on campus and despite being one of the leading universities in United States in regards to disability and physical accommodations being seen as being much more acceptable, there were still huge hurdles to overcome to achieve any results. On a brief side note. I am a coordinator for disapedia.com. We are a wiki based site that hopes to eventually cover all area’s of disability. Your group represents a lot of what I don’t have. Legal expertise, European perspective, and deafness as a disability. Would love it if you could check it out the site and see what you feel needs to be added, and maybe we could work on a partnership of some kind. Email me to let me know if you have any interest.
I agree with all you say we feel the same the deaf do not get enough help they dont seem to be classed as disabled but people should try being in there shoes they would soon be moaning,
Please keep up your good work.
I had personally succeeded with a claim against the then Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA), now Ministry of Justice, because the Peterborough County Court refused to provide a BSL Interpreter for a scheduled hearing. The case settled out of court.