Widening participation into higher education for disabled students

Abstract

This paper describes a three‐year project led by Hereward College (The National Integrated College for Disabled Students), Coventry, UK, that was carried out as part of the Widening Participation initiative to encourage under‐represented groups to take up places in higher education. The paper describes the methodological approach adopted (qualitative interviews) to explore the barriers that disabled students, and in particular those with complex learning support needs, encountered. The main thrust of the activities that resulted from the research findings was to “close the gap” between further and higher education. Partnership days, a summer school, and insight weeks were designed to bring disabled students into the higher education ethos, and vice versa, and to make university staff more aware of the needs, opinions, hopes and fears of potential students with complex difficulties. The project proved to be effective in significantly increasing the numbers of disabled students who subsequently made successful applications to higher education from the college, with an increase of 300 per cent over a three‐year period.