The rash of emails on this topic shows how important a good IT
solution can be to a disabled student and the lack of order or
consistency in the way it is obtained. As regards who is
responsible for doing what, it is the assessor's job to acquire the
knowldege and experience sufficient to be able, through dialogue
with the student, to agree a package of support. It is the Awards
Officer's responsibility to reflect this against the DfES DSA
guidelines and satisfy themself that the requests appear to be both
in order and reasonable.
There is obviously some room for overlap here. The assessor must
know something of the LEA's constraints and the awards officer will
have to form their own views of some strategies from time to time.
Differences can usually be resolved through a phone call if both
sides are prepared to be reasonable. When they are not the result
is sometimes prolonged delays which The Skill Report picked up
on.
While one must admire StJohn Skeat's efforts to keep himself IT
informed, I wonder if he isn't being a bit self indulgent by getting so
involved in assessors' findings. Anyone who runs a centre with
several assessors knows how they can vary and an assessment is
not a unique event. One hopes that each outcome is a reasonable
reflection of an individual's needs even if another assessor may
have come to slightly different conclusions. StJohn's objections to
their findings is hardly surprising but I wonder what it achieves.
While the DfES has still to report its conclusions it has already
begun to question the point of some awards officers choosing to
take evidence and then argue with it. For example, if a qualified EP
says "This student is dyslexic" why would an awards officer feel
able to say they don't agree. Even the practice of referring to
internal EPs (who never interview the candidate) is considered of
doubtful merit.
As regards IT, the DSA system should not be seeking cheapness
as this can often come from unstable sources (Tiny has gone belly
up recently). Two years ago CCPD began discussions with its own
supplier around the concept that it should deliver "an IT based
educational support package for the duration of the course". This
has implications for sustained support and a willingness to
understand that students may do daft things from time to time but
still need their system functioning reliably for a full three years.
Hence the supplier should not have to compete with "stack em
high, sell em cheap". The result was the formation of supplier's
Service Level Agreement or SLA. The concept was picked up by
Skill and accepted by the DfES as well as those who attended its
various round table meetings. Above all, the DfES auditors who
were invited to the Review meetings were happy the idea could be
made to satisfy their requirements for financial probity. The upshot
has been a mixed working party of suppliers, awards officers,
assessors and disability advisers to complete the SLA (which is
still in draft form) and decide how it should be used. Issues like
checking that the agreement is being lived up to. We shall need an
inspection or quality assurance system as well as a better
complaints system than currently operates.
Once in place, I imagine LEAs will still have much of the autonomy
they enjoy presently, but would need a good explanation for why
they would ignore the process.
Dave Laycock
Head of CCPD
Chair of NADO
Computer Centre for People with Disabilities
University of Westminster
72 Great Portland Street
London W1N 5AL
tel. 020 7911-5161
fax. 020 7911-5162
WWW home page: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/ccpd/
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