Critique of Australian University Disability Inclusion.

Emma Myers 0:00

A recently published article critiques of Australian universities called panels failure to adequately promote disability inclusion and equity within the higher education sector. Professor Paul Harper of the University of Queensland explains why disability led disability inclusion strategy, it's vitally important for students with disabilities to be able to study and work in higher education without discrimination.

Paul Harper 0:34

I was invited by Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, to serve on his University's accord minister or reference groups that gave me a privileged position to be in the room. I didn't actually get my hands on writing the report, but I did get my chance to provide direct input to the minister on a number of matters. We lobbied quite heavily for a disability voice into these processes, and the Deputy Secretary of the Department, Ben Rimmer heard those calls and started a disability round table where he talks to students and staff with disabilities. That's provided a lot of input, and I think it's had some tangible results. In another aspect, I've been invited to serve on the higher education standards panel, so I've had some real opportunities to help direct our sector to become more disability

Emma Myers 1:19

inclusive. What criticisms have been labeled against the report, specifically regarding its approach to disability and inclusion in the higher education sector, the

Paul Harper 1:32

Accord process, particularly the two reports, were criticized for their lack of engagement with persons with disabilities and their recommendations and also their approach, for example, it overlooks systemic ableism in the sector, and didn't propose any reforms that would fix those significant challenges. And there's also a disconnect between the stated objectives. We want to increase access to people overall, but without actually dealing with the barriers that people with disabilities confront in the sector. What

Emma Myers 2:05

was the significance of the university? It's a core decision to exclude people with profound disabilities from higher education enrollment, and what implications does this have? It

Paul Harper 2:19

was excluding people with profound disabilities from the metrics it was seen as perpetuating their invisibility in policy discourse and undermined efforts to make an inclusive sector for this marginalized group. Bearing in mind, this isn't a university reform, it's a sector reform for all higher education, even though this was seen as a real risk, we've been very fortunate that Minister Claire has rejected the idea that people with disabilities shouldn't have an attainment target. So the other areas, for example, they set targets to increase representation, whereas for disability, they said, Oh no, that's good enough. Just maintain and not actually setting a higher target, because people with disabilities without qualifications really struggle to get work more than the wider population. So Minister Claire rejected this approach. Now, politicians often talk a lot of talk, but he presented a new approach to funding. Part of it was quadrupling the funding for students with disabilities, so which has been really significant, but also increasing the things that that money can be used

Emma Myers 3:23

for. How did the findings in this report contrast with the vision for equality represented by the Disability Royal Commission and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, the

Paul Harper 3:39

disability rural Commission and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities focuses on equality, dignity, fairness. It's a real push for substantive outcomes. If you look at the CRPD article 24 it has a right to higher education that is equal, not discounted or reasonable adjustments, it's equal, whereas the Accord was a lot more metrics driven and utilitarian, so it didn't really have that Rights Framework, which is a bit disappointing to be honest,

Emma Myers 4:11

what cored challenges and tensions were identified by participants in the study regarding inclusivity and safety at universities for people with disability.

Paul Harper 4:24

That was a really good study that I did with my colleagues, Lisa Stafford and Katie Ellis. We found that across that large study that there was a lot of people that just didn't feel safe and included in higher education. This was academic staff and students with disabilities. They talked about a lot of attitudinal barriers that universities can prioritize other issues over disability, so that disability becomes an afterthought. Ableism is entrenched. It was a real struggle to see how disability leadership wasn't being heard and utilized in the sector.

Emma Myers 4:53

How do these attitudes manifest in the universities?

Paul Harper 4:59

People think. Of universities as one employer or one place you learn, but we are really a complex organization, so each university has faculties and schools and institutes, and they have a central office where students are supported, and most have centralized HR within that, you've got a number of very different cultures within universities, like I would talk at my university, the University The University of Queensland, we're the only university in Australia with a disability inclusion Research and Innovation plan, which aims to improve our research and innovation ecosystem and use our research and innovation strengths to change society for the better. But this study found that, unfortunately, there's an awful lot of barriers that come up all over the shop. So the attitude, for example, students with disabilities will find that they'll go to Student Services Central and they will say, you've got to make these adjustments, and then the academic doesn't make the adjustments, because the academic hasn't got the time allocated to make them, and everyone's more under the pump than ever before, and so they have to self advocate. Overall, people with disabilities can find themselves doing an extra five or 10 hours, maybe a week, working extra time to help the university cope with the disability or manage that disability, things like lifts being broken, and then the person has to create the work around themselves. So a lot of this extra time is emotional and resource burden that other people don't have to

Emma Myers 6:19

manage. What recommendations were made to counter this, one of the

Paul Harper 6:23

big recommendations is give people with disabilities a voice, but also resource that so often people with disabilities are asked to help co design something, but then they're the ones that spend all this extra time, but there's no recognition of that time and effort in their work. So if you're a teaching at university, often you have a 4040, 20 split. So 40% research, 40% teaching and 20% service. Throughout my career, I would have had a 4040, so I will have always done massive amount of service, like well over double what I need to, because I'm trying to help the sector become more inclusive. I've got promotions because I've helped the university, but I don't get enumerated for that. And so there's a lot of people out there who are casual as well, who are doing all this extra work and not getting rewarded for it. Students are a bit easier. Now, if I have students, I always say we have to pay the students or we don't have them, but since this paper, the cause of being intensifying for disability inclusion sector wide plan that includes things like incentives by government, so government can create incentives and sustainable funding from government, connected to an overarching plan to help build capacity on disability inclusion and Disability Leadership. You need to have people with disabilities visible, not just included in the curriculars topic and subject matter, but also who's doing the teaching. It's really powerful to have people with disabilities as a teacher, not just for the students with disabilities who are now making up 12% of the university sector, but also the wider population, because if you have this view that people with disabilities can't be successful. Your views are going to be challenged when the professor before you has the disability. But also you need to have people with disabilities in leadership positions, like gray minutes, who's the chancellor at Central Queensland University. You need to have people like that in leadership, because it really makes a difference. And part of that is obviously disability councils and equity groups that speak into that, but also those groups have their time recognized in their performance appraisals, potentially resourced directly. I think the big thing for me is even now with everything, there's an assumption of what I can't do, and people don't imagine what I can do. And I find it really frustrating when people imagine what is possible and then have their erroneous views on what is possible imposed on me when reality is nothing's impossible.