Agree - the data is somewhat difficult to understand.
that is why it is curious that almost 50% of all first year uni students in
the USA designate leaning disabilities as their limitation - 11% of
universities in Western Australia.
Have to suppose this is linked to identification and support in high school
and funding in post secondary - nevertheless - any data is welcome
thanks all -
Jaye
The numbers of higher education students with a disability in the UK is very
difficult to gauge, as there are a wide variety of facts and figures to sift
the information from:
The Disabled Graduates Careers Information Service in 1997 found from a
survey of 214 institutions of higher education within the UK that they could
estimate that there are 7,548 students with disabilities or 0.7% of the
student population.
This is very low compare to what I have found
The Higher Education Funding Council of England in the same year estimated
that nearly 27,000 undergraduates declared a disability that's 2% of the
total student body.
getting closer but still indicates a significant under representation given
the population incidence
>From information gathered for 'Widening participation in higher education
for students from lower socio-economic groups and students with
disabilities', we find that there were 14,900 first year students in higher
education who declared a disability. Hogarth et al reported that 4.1% of all
students in their sample declared a disability.
i would say this is probably similar to the actual in Australia
If we look at dyslexia as just one area of disability, we find that Badian
in 1984 thought that in the Western world dyslexia affects 4% of the
population severely, regardless of socio- economic status, race or level of
intelligence. However Pennington 1991 in 'Diagnosing Learning Disorders' has
suggested that up to 10% of the population show some signs of dyslexia.
interesting when compared to almost 50% of the first year uni population in
USA
It is not clearly understood whether participation by students with
disabilities, is proportional to the distribution of people with
disabilities in the population as a whole. As 6.2 million people
(approximately 20%) of the working age group report a long- standing
disability according to the Labour Force Survey 1998/99.
the federal gov of australia has identified people with disabilities as an
equity group based on considerable underrepresentation in the University
population using raw population data but i tend to believe that for us 7.2%
of the population with a disability and limitation in education in the
university age group will never represent 7.2% of the university population
for various reasons
However none of these figures for HE are a true reflection as many are based
on the UCAS (University and Colleges Admissions Service) definition of
disability and rely on the student admitting to a disability at the time
that they apply to their chosen academic institution. The true extent of
students with a disability in higher education is obscured by the large
number of 'not known' (33%) by virtue that no box is ticked. We are at
present waiting for HESA to provide us with the exact numbers of students
who have declared a disability at the start of the academic year 1999/2000,
these figures were promised for the end of 1999!
This does mean that at Manchester Metropolitan University with a student
population of 33,000 there could be as many as 6,600 students with a
disability severe enough to require an assessment of need and some support
from the disabled students allowance. At present there are just over 1,000
students on our 'books' that is less than 4% of the student body.
Mmmm that is what we see in Oz
Jaye
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|