PARSA calls on the ANU to make learning more accessible and flexible for students
The ANU as an institution has long treated accessibility and flexibility as an afterthought, with students suffering as a result. Students with disabilities and health conditions, students who have caring responsibilities and students who need to work to support themselves financially all experience the consequences of inefficient bureaucratic processes that put the burden of requesting and justifying the need for adjustments on students. PARSA knows all too well the toll this has on too many postgraduate students who come to our student assistance team seeking support. With the Disability Royal Commission due to report in September this year, PARSA has established an Accessibility and Flexibility Working Group to lobby the ANU to finally take meaningful action to improve teaching and learning accessibility and flexibility.
Last year the National Union of Students, Australian Law Students' Association and Australian Medical Students' Association released a joint position statement and research report on Disability and Higher Education. The report draws attention to the systemic obstacles and discrimination that students with disabilities regularly encounter in higher education, issues that are likely to be further highlighted when the Disability Royal Commission reports in September this year and that PARSA knows are issues at the ANU.
The NUS/ALSA/AMSA report could have provided an opportunity for ANU to reset the relationship with students with accessibility needs and begin taking serious action to address disability discrimination, improve the accessibility of the physical and virtual campus, increase the flexibility offered in academic programs and introduce strategies to stop the sexual assault of students with disabilities.
Regrettably, the university has not chosen this path. ANUSA and PARSA are yet to receive any invitations from the ANU to discuss the report's recommendations. Instead, according to an ANU spokesperson quoted in a recent Woroni article, the ANU will "continue to progress its Disability Action Plan (DAP), which already addresses many of the points in the report".
PARSA challenges the accuracy of this claim. Broadly, it seems there are two tiers of action plans at ANU. On one tier there are action plans such as Below Zero and Sexual Violence Prevention and Response which receive consistent sponsorship from senior members of chancellery and input from all levels of the university; are fully resourced and funded; and regularly provide public status reports on their progress. These three conditions are necessary for an action plan to have a chance of driving meaningful change. On the other tier are action plans that do not have a chance of being successful because one or more of these baseline conditions have not been met.
It doesn't take a lot of fact checking to realise that these conditions for success do not apply to the Disability Action Plan.
- Sponsorship from senior members of chancellery and input from all levels of the university: The list of members of the Disability Action and Inclusion Working Group shows a lack of involvement from key stakeholders whose support is necessary to make meaningful improvements to accessibility in academic programs. In particular, the following people are not represented: the ANU Vice Chancellor, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), Pro Vice Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), Dean (HDR), Dean of Students, Director Researcher Development Team, Director (University Experience) or Director Academic Skills. The Disability Action and Inclusion Working Group is supported by the Work Environment Group who are part of the Human Resources Division, while all other Working Groups under the IDEA portfolio (Gender Equity Working Group and Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group) are supported the Equity and Belonging Team who are part of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) portfolio.
- Fully resourced and funded: The Disability Action Plan includes many expensive action items, particularly those related to improving the physical accessibility of the ANU campuses. However there have been no announcements of funding to support these actions. PARSA representatives who have participated in the Disability Access and Inclusion Working Group have made many observations that suggest other areas of the Disability Action Plan are also under-funded and under-resourced.
- Regular public updates: There are no progress updates on the Disability Action and Inclusion Working Group page as there are for Below Zero and Sexual Violence Prevention and Response. PARSA also could not find any discussion of the Disability Action Plan in the VC’s updates, while it easily found updates from the Vice Chancellor on Below Zero and addressing sexual assault and sexual harassment.
The Disability Access and Inclusion Working Group has not been set up in a way that would allow it to make meaningful progress against the majority of actions in the Disability Action Plan, let alone the recommendations in the NUS/ALSA/AMSA report. The structural issues associated with making progress on the education section of the Disability Action Plan can also be seen visually in the following flow chart, which shows the pathway that accessibility issues raised by ANUSA and PARSA disabilities officers within the Disability Action Plan structure would need to take before action can be taken by the relevant members of teaching staff. It is not surprising that few (if any) of the accessibility issues students have raised through this pathway have been relayed all the way to course convenors.
It seems that the ANU itself is aware of some of the issues. In December last year PARSA received an email saying that the action groups that sit under the Disability Access and Inclusion Working group were being disbanded and would be replaced by taskforces focusing on individual actions in the Disability Action Plan. According to the ANU, the taskforce structure will better enable the ANU to make progress against the actions in the Disability Action Plan.
Recommendations:
PARSA is concerned that switching from action groups to taskforces is no more than superficial restructuring and will not address the deeper obstacles preventing the Disability Action Plan from making meaningful progress. We recommend that the ANU takes the following actions as a minimum:
- Transfer responsibility for supporting the Disability Action Plan and Disability Accessibility and Inclusion Working Group to the Equity and Belonging Team, for example by transferring the Disability Action Plan Implementation Officer to work for the Equity and Belonging Team.
- Set up stronger connections between groups working on the education section of the Disability Action Plan and teaching and learning committees, for example by establishing an Accessibility and Flexibility Working Group as a sub-committee of the Teaching and Learning Development Committee.
- Ensure that all of the following key education decision makers are represented: Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), Pro Vice Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), Dean (HDR), Dean of Students, College Associate Deans (Education and HDR), School Associate Directors (Education and HDR), Director of Research Training, Director (University Experience) and Director of Academic Skills, in addition to current representatives from Access and Inclusion, Student First and the Centre for Learning and Teaching.
- Consult with students and teaching staff to prioritise teaching and learning accessibility and flexibility projects and ensure these initiatives are fully funded and resourced.
- Commit to making regular, transparent and easily available updates to students on teaching and learning accessibility and flexibility initiatives.
For more infomation or to speak with a PARSA representative please contact: parsa@anu.edu.au