Disability and Australian higher education: The case for an Accessible model of disability support

Abstract

This article explores a century and a half of supporting students with disabilities in Australian higher education, spanning the introduction of mass public education legislation in 1872 through to 2022. The article documents the transition from a paradigm in which disability was not integral to universal public instruction to systemic approaches to provision of reasonable adjustments. This transition has opened opportunities for persons with disabilities in some regards yet impedes full inclusion in others. Theoretically, we draw upon multiple paradigms of disability to explore how disability support has evolved in the Australian higher education sector, including ‘charitable’, ‘inspiration porn’, ‘medical’, ‘social’, ‘prosthetic’ and ‘ecological’ models. We offer qualitative and quantitative examples across time to illustrate these evolving paradigms. We then explore an alternative model of disability, which we define as an ‘Accessible’ model of disability support.

Introduction

The Education Act of 1872 mandated universal public instruction in Victoria and established the model of education that spread to other jurisdictions and expanded its reach across Australia. At the point at which the Education Act was introduced, students were legitimately excused from attendance requirements for ‘temporary or permanent infirmary’ (Education Act 1872 (Victoria), 1872, p. 3). There was no provision or requirement within the legislation for adjustments to accommodate students with disability. Across the subsequent 130 years, the paradigm has shifted towards greater recognition of disability. The enactment of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Australian Government, 1992) established a nationally consistent legal protective framework for the rights for persons with disabilities. Central to this framework is the notion of reasonable adjustments, referring to measures or actions taken to allow persons with disabilities to participate equally in society and its institutions. In higher education, this means institutions are required to make changes to education (within specified constraints) to accommodate the specific needs of students with disabilities. The successful implementation and refinement of the Disability Discrimination Act has established and contributes to a paradigm where students with disabilities have a legal right to request reasonable adjustments that is systematically activated. We note, however, that not all students are aware or nor exercise this right, and not all requests for reasonable adjustments are accommodated.

This article describes changes in paradigms relating to disability in Australian education from the time of the Education Act, with particular attention on the participation of students with disabilities in Australian higher education, that is, universities. We draw upon several models of disability to describe these changing paradigms. We contextualise these models, or paradigms, of disability, with illustrative examples of reasonable adjustments in Australian higher education at various point in time. By demonstrating that models of disability have shifted across time, we suggest that the current paradigm for Australian higher education – the prosthetic model-should be displaced by a new paradigm, which we argue should be an Accessible model. This paper commences with a brief background to the Education Act, as it relates to disability. We then describe the various disability models apparent in the Australian higher education sector from 1872, drawing upon qualitative examples and relevant statistics. We then outline the framework for a new and emerging paradigm, which we define as the Accessible model of disability support.

Background

The Bill that gave rise to the Education Act was introduced to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in September of 1872 (Victoria, 1872, p. 1506). The primary aims of the Education Act were to improve school participation and achieve appropriate standards, notably in the 3 Rs of reading, (w)riting and (a)rthimatic (Education Act 1872 (Victoria), 1872). Indirectly, the Bill defined the paradigm for disability in higher education through two key points. The first, was that disability was legitimate a point of exclusion from education, not a point of inclusion. The second was that one could not progress to university if one was not able to participate in or complete school. At this point in the evolution of Victorian higher education, participation remained an elite concern. Only 134 students were attending lectures in 1872 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1873, p. Part IX), representing 0.02% of Victoria’s population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1873, p. Part III). Thus, the exclusion of persons with disabilities from the state’s university at this time arose from exclusion from participation in school and generalised exclusion of the general population from higher education.

The reference to disability or, in the words of the Education Act, infirmary also serves to highlight that disability has always been a social construct. For the purposes of this article, we treat impairment as a real, lived experience, whereas disability arises mainly from disabling responses of wider society to individuals who have impairments. We acknowledge that this approach is contestable. For example, some schemas causally link impairment with disadvantage, whilst others view disability as wholly and exclusively social (Oliver, 2017). However, we do not seek to use this conceptualisation to define disability, rather we employ it to better read how disability policy – both in espoused intent of text and as practice of policy implementation – acts to either support or restrict persons with impairments. Reading policy in this way, therefore, reveals an evolution in the models of disability employed within the Australian higher education sector. The illustrative examples that follow draw upon source data that describes disability in ways that are uncomfortable reading in the current context. We in no way endorse the historic language nor models of disability but draw upon this data to reveal the origins of contemporary paradigms.

Inspiration Porn and the Charity Model

Historic identifiable approaches to what we now know as disability presented students with impairments as a source of inspiration, due to their ability to overcome barriers. In modern terminology this is sometimes referred to as ‘inspiration porn’, or ‘… an image of a person with visible signs of impairment [along with] a caption that directs the viewer to be inspired by the image in question’ (Grue, 2016, p. 839). Inspiration porn superficially presents as celebrations of the human spirit, but also objectify persons with disabilities and re-affirm what ‘normal’ looks like (Grue, 2016; Haller & Preston, 2016).

Evidence of inspiration porn in the Australian higher education context can be traced back to 1891. Matilda Ann Aston, described as an inmate of the Victorian Asylum for the Blind, passed the matriculation examination at the University of Melbourne. Matilda ‘passed in every subject and thereby established for herself a record which in the circumstances is unique as far as this colony is concerned’ (“A successful blind student,” 1891, p. 5). Her success was attributed to the support she received from Asylum staff but mostly ‘her own intelligence, industry and resolute perseverance’ (“Honor to the blind,” 1891). She enrolled in an Arts degree at the University of Melbourne, but ‘lack of Braille textbooks and nervous prostration forced her to abandon it in her second year’ (Green, 1979). Inspirational as her story was, therefore, it appears that the structure necessary to support her academic pursuits were lacking.

An alternative model of disability is the charity model, where persons with disability are seen as sufferers who need to be pitied and supported out of kindness, or as directed by a moral calling, such as religion (Retief & Letšosa, 2018; Ware & Schuelka, 2019). The charity model can be observed just a week after the Education Act was tabled in the Victorian parliament. On the 19th of September 1872, the Victorian Legislative Assembly agreed to allocate funds for Charitable Institutions, including £1,500 for the Asylum and School for the Blind and £2,800 for the Deaf and Dumb Institution, Prahran (Victoria, 1872, p. 1437).

The charity model extends across time with evidence in its application within higher education observed in the following excerpt from the minutes of a meeting of the Professorial Board of the University of Melbourne, in 1930:

The President submitted the case of a girl who was reported by her School Principal to be very deaf and to be, therefore, quite unable to take the Dictation section of the Leaving Examination in French, and [the principal requested] that she should be given a test in Phonetic transcription instead of the Dictation, and that Professor Wrigley had concurred, but that he thought that the Board should know of the proposal. It was resolved that the variation in the examination proposed be approved (University of Melbourne Archives, 1930, pp. 494–495).

This passage indicates that the request to provide a reasonable adjustment for the student was made directly to the academic staff member, who approved the request using their own cognisance. The communication to the Professorial Board was post facto and the decision rubber stamped. There was no evidence of institutional process or direction; in line with a charity model, the provision of support was the gift of the academic to give as they saw fit. Another example of the charity model can be found with Mercy Dickinson, who graduated from the University of Queensland in 1939. Dickinson relied on the goodwill of nuns at the blind school to transcribe books into Braille and sometimes exams were transcribed by the wife of one of the professors (Dickinson, 1986). Both the charity and inspiration models are therefore typified by an ad hoc approach, in the sense that there is usually no systematic approach nor clearly defined procedures and the student remains highly dependent on their own efforts, or the altruism of others, to support them in their academic pursuits.

The Medical Model

From the 1970s, the medical model of disability started to dominate higher education policy and practice. At its heart, the medical model considers disabilities as defects in need of treatment. This simultaneously reinforces the able body as the norm and focuses attention on the need to provide reasonable adjustments whereby the student is a passive receiver of service and the power is in the domain of the professional (Guevara, 2021; Terroso, 2021). In higher education, the student is sometime viewed as an individual seeking to subvert academic standards, by claiming an impairment in order to gain an unfair advantage over other students. Evidence of this concern can be found in policy work from the early to mid-1990s, as institutions grappled with ways to better identify and support students with disabilities. Stakeholders reported concerns that, whilst self-identification might suffice for the purpose of counting raw numbers of students for statistical reasons, ‘People with disabilities could be defined in a reliable way only by reference to medical standards’ (Martin, 1994, p. 170). The belief that persons with disabilities themselves were unreliable sources of information is evident in the following quote:

Nearly all institutions which have undertaken surveys on disabilities report that a large number of students declare themselves as having a disability if they wear spectacles or have a short term medical condition. Hence, the questions need to differentiate between a minor impairment which is correctable by medical treatment and more severe disability which is permanent and requires special assistance (Martin, 1994, p. 86).

Further example of the dominance of the medical model can be found in a seminal study of higher education students with disability conducted for the Australian Federal Government in 1992 (Andrews & Smith, 1992). The study was one of the earliest attempts to quantify the number of students with disabilities and the costs associated with supporting reasonable adjustments. To design the survey, the researchers first interviewed a sample of students to better understand their support needs. However, the survey itself was given not to students, but to disability support staff for reasons of ‘[efficiency] and time-saving’ (Andrews & Smith, 1992, p. 7), using a survey instrument grounded in medicalised categories of disability. The empirical data collected and reported was thus structured by a medical model of disability and mediated by persons other than persons with disabilities.

The Social Model

Whilst the medical model of disability dominated higher education policy and practice throughout the 1990s and through to the 2000s, awareness of social models of disability were on the rise. Social models of disability understand people as being disabled, primarily, not by their impairment but by how wider society responds to the individual (Oliver, 2013; Zarb, 1995). In Australia, promotion of a social model was enhanced with the enactment of the Disability Standards for Education (2005), particularly around the requirement to provide a reasonable adjustment to ensure a person with disability can apply, be considered, enrolled and undertake studies on the same basis as a student without a disability (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2005). A social model of disability approach encourages educational providers to consider not only the curriculum in respect of inclusivity, but so too the built environment of the institution, the technology it operates and supports, communication styles (both academic and non-academic), attitudes of the community (staff and students) and social inclusion in extra-curricular activities (Pitman, 2021). Notwithstanding the embedding of a social model ethos within legislation, it is important to note that medical documentation remains deeply embedded as the means by which a person with disability may be able to access services and support.

Critically, however, the Disability Standards for Education define an adjustment as ‘reasonable’ if it meets the interests of not only the student, but also other students and the educational institution. There is no requirement to make unreasonable adjustments and provider can reject requested adjustments if they are perceived to compromise the integrity of an award. This allows universities to refuse to make adjustments that would impose ‘unjustifiable hardship on an education provider’ (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2005, p. 22), such as financial burden. Thus, while access to education is a fundamental right for persons with disabilities, it is not an unconditional right.

The Prosthetic Model

Building from the social model, Williams (2016) argues that in Australia, a ‘prosthetic’ model of disability is operationalised in higher education. The prosthetic model understands disability support within a resource allocation setting, that is, it in part determines which students will be supported and which will not. It is a hybrid of the social and medical models in that it proceeds from social understandings of disability, but views support as an add-on to academic programs. This ‘implies that if there is a deficit, the deficit is within the individual rather than the functioning of the institution’ (Williams, 2016, p. 168). To decide which student will be supported and what support they will receive, someone other than the student makes a determination of what constitutes a reasonable adjustment. Hence, it takes on critical aspects of the medical model of disability. In fact, we argue that the prosthetic model explains more than ‘the translation between medical and social models of disability’ (Williams, 2016, p. 169) because it recognises first, the primacy of institutional resource allocation processes, second, notions of academic standards and third, reasonable adjustment identification and implementation processes. The first controls the overall funding envelope that the educational provider has for disability support, the third determines individual allocations in an essentially zero-sum environment, and the second has right of veto if academic conventions are unsettled. The process may appear to provide students with access to the services they have a right to expect, but in reality, places critical aspects of defining what is reasonable well beyond the capacity of the individual to influence.

Analysing how disability support is operationalised within higher education institutions provides evidence of the prosthetic model in practice. First, the right to education for persons with disability, and an acknowledgement that reasonable adjustments may need to be made, is recognition of the social model of disability. However, focussing on reasonable adjustments – as opposed to designing education to be inclusive from the outset – situates a person with a disability as the ‘other’. Next, to access certain types of reasonable adjustment, students must provide medical evidence of their impairment, thus embedding the medical model. However, key agents within the institution can ultimately determine that provision of the adjustment would constitute unjustifiable hardship, or contravene standards. Students face considerable challenges in navigating this model and become reliant on access to disability officers to help navigate complex institutional settings.

Access to this support is constrained by a variety of resource allocation processes. Universities are reimbursed for a proportion of their expenditure on reasonable adjustments and receive a small loading for each student with a disability they enrol (Pitman et al., 2021b). Funding rules preclude reimbursement for the costs of employing disability officers, making this a university responsibility. Underinvestment in disability services, combined with increasing numbers of students with disability at university, can result in access to the services that mediate reasonable adjustments being constrained. Students may have less time to discuss their needs, or have long wait times to access services, or encounter staff ill-equipped to navigate the complexity of resource allocation or academic standards constraints on access to reasonable adjustments.

The Ecological Model

There has been a clear evolution in models of disability utilised in Australian higher education spanning inspiration porn, charitable, medical and social models. This type of evolution is not restricted to Australia. There is evidence that national systems of higher education will be at different points in development of approaches that are more open to students with disability. In a comparative analysis of disability in higher education across several OECD nations Ebersold and Evans (2003) recommend that systems adopt policies based on an ecological definition of disability, recognising that disability is a product of the interaction between the individual and the environment, rather than intrinsic to the individual, or emanating only from the social.

Drawing upon these earlier case studies Ebersold (2008) explores the evolution of disability in higher education and interaction of person and environment through the prism of openness. Systems may be open to notions of diversity, with embedded notions of equity that allow for greater receptiveness to disability. Openness to disability influences and enhances system effectiveness. Disability can become a proxy for broader system changes that allow all students to fulfil their potential. Openness to disability can provide a basis for innovation, with systems becoming more accustomed to personalised and innovative responses to disability. It is this later perspective on disability that warrants further consideration, particularly considering the prosthetic model that dominates Australian higher education disability support practice in the first quarter of the 21st century.

Australia has been open to notions of diversity for decades, with disability featuring as a designated equity group since equity groups were first codified (Brett, 2016). There is no doubt that Australian higher education has benefited from a more diverse student population, and from specific enhancements introduced to accommodate students with disabilities. Automatic doors, ramps and adjustments to assessment are routinely available to all students, significantly influencing system effectiveness. One can question, however, whether the innovative potential for disability is accepted and leveraged at a system level.

Increasing enrolments of students with disabilities can be perceived as a cost rather than opportunity or site for exciting innovation. A study of financing of disability in Australian higher education found that base funding arising from the enrolment of students with disability amounted to $668 million in 2015 (Pitman et al., 2021b, p. 7). Further analysis showed university annual reports made no reference to the revenue benefits associated with disability nor overarching welcoming statements relating to disability. An undercurrent of cost and loss was observed, particularly in relation to the additional costs of support unfunded under Commonwealth policy (Pitman et al., 2021b, p. 36).

Disability therefore remains othered, a property of the individual that is begrudgingly accommodated through prosthetic models of support. This support is mediated by resource constraint and adherence to academic standards that have been found to have exclusionary properties (Boucher, 2021; Corcoran et al., 2021). Support takes the form of adjustment, although without deviation from course requirements that assure graduates have ‘appropriate knowledge, experience and expertise implicit in the holding of that particular award’ (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2005, p. 3).

The Australian higher education system is some way from what might be considered an ideal of an ecological model of disability that genuinely celebrates the innovative potential of disability, and recognises the benefits for doing so for broader society. This is not a claim that advocates abandoning reasonable adjustments to how students meet academic standards nor complete anarchy in what students learn and how they are assessed. The argument is more sophisticated encouragement to critically assess whether the higher education system as a whole, its component institutions, and more localised practices can accommodate the diverse needs of its students in ways that can optimise benefits for all.

The Need for a New Paradigm: (A)ccessibility, not (A)ccessibility?

We are not the first to consider bigger picture issues around the future of inclusion in Australian higher education. ‘The Best Chance For All’ has been devised as a long-term roadmap for equity in higher education (Zacharias & Brett, 2019) and used as a device for considering how lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic might contribute to a more inclusive system (Kift et al., 2021). More holistic notions of equity and inclusion can, however, gloss over the more nuanced challenges influencing the participation of certain students. In the case of disability, we suggest that by embracing the opportunity for innovation with this construct, there is a transformative potential for all students that can be realised. By accommodating the underlying diversity and complexity associated with disability, one can address intersectionality with all other facets of the human condition. Before describing both the opportunities for innovation, and extent to which these opportunities already exist in policy, it is worth taking stock of key points made in this article.

Disability in higher education intersects with aggregate supply and patterns of participation in the higher education system. If, as in 1872, participation is low there will be multiple forms of exclusion, including exclusion of persons with disability. Second, if exclusions are built into a policy paradigm of universal access, universal access will not be achieved. Where exclusion is the norm, miraculous exceptions like Matilda Ann Aston and Mercy Dickinson will be celebrated as evidence of how generous and accommodating the environment can be for some persons with disability. The Disability Discrimination Act represents a profound shift in paradigm that makes reasonable adjustment a legal requirement. The Disability Discrimination Act also requires that education institutions not approve or deliver curricula that excludes students or exposes them to any other detriment (Disability Discrimination Act 1992 Cth. s.22.(2A)). When faced with a choice between non-exclusionary curricula (such as use of universal design for learning) and provision of reasonable adjustments to compensate for non-inclusive curricula, universities have chosen the later with a prosthetic model of disability that rations the provision of reasonable adjustments.

The first matter requiring policy attention and opportunity for innovation is the need for a genuine policy commitment to lifelong learning for all. Although the concept of ‘lifelong learning for all’ was only truly explicated in the early seventies (Faure et al., 1972), as we have shown in our initial discussion regarding the Education Act of 1872, in practice this dates back to the 19th century in Australia. However, in order to operationalise this concept, higher education funding needs to be demand, not supply, driven, thus alleviating competition for scarce educational resources (Trow, 2009). Australia did, for a time, flirt with the idea of demand driven funding for higher education, leading to a major increase in overall enrolments. However, we have now relapsed to a higher education funding model with capped places and funding. This resource constraint exacerbates the prosthetic model and need to moderate the costs of support for students with disabilities positioned as the exception from the norm. Universities can and should aim to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities, but their participation will be limited if places are limited. Moving away from post-compulsory education to an acceptance that lifelong learning is a desirable policy goal is key.

The second matter is an urgent need to improve the transition from school to higher education, and support multiple entry, exit and re-entry points to higher education over the life course. A recent review of post-compulsory education pathways recommended that every student leave school with an Education Passport (Shergold et al., 2020). This passport would include a personalised curation of their skills and attributes. While recognising the nomenclature is problematic (i.e. a passport infers privilege and restrictions), the idea identifies an opportunity for a student to port valuable information from one sector to another. Structured appropriately it would provide students with disabilities and universities with a potent, evidence-based opportunity for innovation. The challenges of repeated disclosure for those with an ongoing need for specific services could be minimised by a process describing needs, aspirations, intentions and constraints. Universities might reposition what are known as learning access plans, to learning passports, working with skilled officers to identify how students might travel from their point of origin to preferred destination. These passports would be available to all students, but aptitude in their design and application would be enhanced and underpinned by the more specific plans developed for students with disabilities. Disability in this priority area becomes the catalyst for innovation that all students benefit from. Once introduced these learning passports could evolve and mature across time, leveraging study, work and life experiences to support participation study for those gaining a foundational degree, and those returning to study to further develop their skills or transition to other disciplines or professions.

The notion of learning passports assumes some flexibility in course structures, points of entry, curated knowledge, exit points. This is the third policy priority we outline. The core of the Australian Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 Cth (Australian Government, 2021) is that learning outcomes for education programs leading to recognised qualifications are specified in advance, assessed and quality assured. Reasonable adjustments are possible, but, again, must not compromise specified learning outcomes. These learning outcomes are often framed in ways that are exclusionary, whether deliberately or inadvertently. The Threshold Standards have less relevance to education programs that do not lead to recognised qualifications, such as microcredentials. Universities are increasingly allowing microcredentials to be stacked as credit in more formal macrocredentials (Oliver, 2019). This stackable approach to learning allows learners to curate the learning that works for them, accumulating certified learning experiences that are meaningful and relevant to the learner. In some cases, these learning experiences are more granular in nature and the world of microcredentials is expanding rapidly. The Review of the Australian Qualifications Framework (Noonan et al., 2019) recognised this shifting landscape, and recommended several changes that might accommodate more modularised and personalised approaches to higher education. The Review recommended a national recognition of prior learning system be developed, allowing learners to mix and match content from providers to meet their individual needs. The Commonwealth Government has recently established guidelines for microcredentials (Department of Education Skills and Employment, 2021) that ensures microcredentials can be integrated in a recognition of prior learning system, if and when it is established. While not motivated by the needs of students with disabilities, these developments again provide an opportunity for innovation, allowing for personalisation based on disability and moving away from more fixed and rigid approaches to learning design.

The final policy priority relates to the extent to which institution embrace a commitment to what we propose as the deliberate capitalisation of Accessibility. If students leave school with their destination and mode of travel defined in their learning passport, transitioning to personalised curriculum, and financed through an entitlement to lifelong learning, the next significant priority is the accessibility of the educational environments they may traverse and experience. ‘Accessibility’ becomes a central feature of higher education curriculum and experience, as opposed to ancillary consideration of ‘accessibility’ as an afterthought once the core structures for pedagogy, curriculum and support have been designed. Currently, universities are focussing on incorporating principles of (lower case) accessibility into their organisations. While acknowledging the importance of this, such approaches tend not to move beyond instrumentalism: the primary goal is to make existing knowledge accessible to a more diverse student population, rather than explore alternative ontologies or realities. The focus is on the tools, media and professional competencies required to transmit an existing body knowledge more widely. The existing knowledge base, and its modes of production tend to be narrowly framed, and not represent the diversity of the human condition (Bacevic, 2019). Much academic knowledge has its roots in ontologies that tend towards classicism, neurotypicality, gender assumptions and colonialism. By comparison, Accessibility (with an upper case) conceptualises the higher education sector as a space where alternative ontologies and epistemologies can be explored, assessed and credentialed with institutional validity. Disability has both socio-economic and cultural dimensions. The former understands the barriers faced by persons with disabilities and seeks to ameliorate them. This is the world view of the reasonable adjustment. The latter understands disability as an entrée into various, alternative identities and world-views that bring new valencies, that is, capacities for individuals to react with or affect others in positive and special ways. Rather than ‘counting’ students with disabilities for the purpose of removing socio-economic barriers to educational success, Accessibility understands that students with disability count (Pitman et al., 2021a) and, when effectively implemented, opens opportunities for all. Just as accessible film-making moves accessibility from the ex-post to the ex-ante stage of film production (Greco, 2018), we believe Accessible education should explore issues of disability co-creatively, at the point that curriculum is designed.

Conclusion

The paradigm for disability in higher education has evolved across time, from near complete exclusion in 1872 to partial inclusion today. The models associated with disability at each point in this history have not been completely jettisoned, and charitable, inspiration porn, medical, social and prosthetic models of disability continue to influence higher education disability support to varying degrees. The prosthetic model of disability, and the primacy of rationed reasonable adjustment, best represents practices in Australian higher education today. Recognition of evolving paradigms and an ecological conceptualisation allows one to imagine a future, post-reasonable adjustment paradigm. In this article we suggest that there are four key elements to supporting this paradigm shift. Firstly, universal participation in system where lifelong learning is normalised. Second, the improvement of cross-sectoral communication to support ongoing access to and navigation of complex higher education environments. Third, a more modular and personalised approach to higher education where students can pick and choose education experiences aligned with their ticketed learning passport and plan. Finally, a commitment to Accessibility rather than accessibility, to establish a learning environment that embraces and celebrates diverse ontologies and epistemologies. Together, these policy priorities and opportunities for innovation may see the interaction between person and environment eliminate disability within higher education contexts and establish a new post-reasonable adjustment paradigm.