IMPLICATIONS OF NEW DISABILITY LEGISLATION FOR UK HIGHER EDUCATION

Remarkably, up until this year, UK Higher Education had no legal obligation to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities. New legislation arrived in May 2001 and will have far reaching implications for the teaching of Earth Sciences. Particularly affected by the legislation will be fieldwork and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in learning and teaching.

Fieldwork is regarded as a core part of the Earth Sciences curricula, and it is no longer acceptable to exclude students with disabilities from taking part. This is a daunting prospect for many lecturers who have little or no experience of tackling the issues that are involved with disabilities, let alone when applied to fieldwork.

The use of ICT in learning and teaching is well established, especially in the sciences. However, the "accessibility" of these technologies for disabled students is now under scrutiny, resulting in new approaches to the way they are developed and embedded.

Education in the UK is addressing these issues in the form of advisory services such as TechDis (http://www.techdis.ac.uk), the Learning and Teaching Support Network (http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/), the National Disabilities Team (http://www.natdisteam.ac.uk) and the recently produced 'disabilities in fieldwork' guidance materials from the Geography Discipline Network (http://www.chelt.ac.uk/gdn/). These initiatives are currently looking at how the issues surrounding fieldwork and ICT can be addressed in parallel, using technology to access fieldwork and ensuring that the technologies used in mainstream learning and teaching are accessible. Presently, these initiatives are also looking at the results of the US Federal Legislation Section 508 and how the experiences gained on both sides of the Atlantic can be brokered for the benefit of the wider Earth Sciences community.

The aims of this presentation are to inform the audience of the up and coming issues for Earth Sciences in the UK with respect to disabilities and to encourage discussion and sharing of experience with our US counterparts.