Organisations representing people with disabilities have called out the Australian Universities Accord final report for its use of ableist language and exclusion of people with profound disabilities.
In a joint statement through the Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability (ATEND), ten advocacy and representative groups requested an “immediate retraction of ableist language used in the Accord, and a recalculation of the target participation rate for people with disability to be inclusive of all people.”
“The Accord has perpetuated low expectations around students with disability by excluding people with ‘profound disability’ from the data set used to calculate the expected participation rate of people with disability in university education,” the statement said.
The statement goes on to argue that the omission of people with ‘profound disability’ in the Accords breaches several articles in disabilities legislation, including the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA), the Disabilities Standards for Education 2005 (DSE), as well as Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
During the time of the Accords’ release, Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYPDA) noted that “the focus for students with disability [was] on ‘maintaining [current] participation rate’ at universities until 2035” and that this was in “stark contrast to far more ambitious goals for other under-represented groups.”
The Accords report stated that the number of disabled students appeared to have exceeded their “expected enrolment share” of 8.4% so no target increases were warranted.
The 8.4% figure in the final report is an estimate based on data that excludes people with profound disabilities as it is “assumed to preclude participation in higher education,” according to the report.
‘Profound disability’ is not defined in the Accords report. The data is sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which defines profound disability as those needing help with “self-care, mobility and communication tasks.” The ATEND statement states that this definition “encapsulates a significant cohort of potential students with disability, many of whom have completed or are currently completing tertiary studies”.
“The Accord’s current position normalises the low expectations that society has for people with disability and potentially gives universities the license to avoid making their study offerings accessible to people with significant support needs,” the statement said. It called for a removal of the term ‘profound disability’ and an addressing of the “data faults” within the report that excludes disabled people from tertiary education.
The statement also called for inclusion of disabled people and people with expertise working with disabled students in higher education during the implementation of the Accord recommendations, as well as specific provisions to be added to the proposed National Student Ombudsman concerning the needs of disabled students.