A recent report published by the Equality Challenge Unit, gives an encouraging insight into the progress being made by higher education institutions over recent years with regard to equality legislation and best practice. The number of staff and students who feel able to declare a disability has continued to increase, testament to the work institutions have been doing to encourage disclosure.
The latest figures from 2008/09 show that 7.5% of all students disclose a disability, a steady increase from 2003/04 when only 5.5% disclosed. Interestingly, over half of first degree undergraduate students known to have a disability declared that they had a specific learning difficulty e.g. dyslexia.
However, there is still significantly a lower proportion of disabled graduates (45.0%)attaining full-time paid work on leaving university, compared to other leavers not know to have a disability (51.7%), even though the level of degree attainment for those known to have a disability was only marginally less than those not known to have a disability (first class honours or second class honours attainment for first degree undergraduates 59.8% cf. 62.8%).
We are always keen to deepen our relationships with universities and provide a range of services to university careers/ disability officers, such as Campus Visits and Skills Workshops. During these we can offer 1-to-1 sessions and advice on issues of disclosure, application writing, and other areas. We can work together to improve these statistics – contact us info@employ-ability.org.uk or call 07852 764 684 to find out more. Of if you want to create a direct impact think about becoming an EmployAbility Ambassador at your university