Students need more support

ATHIRD of young people with visual impairments are struggling to gain quality education and employment because they don’t get proper support.

And once they find themselves without work or a place in education or training, some young people find themselves actively discouraged by JobCentre Plus staff from seeking employment, in favour of long-term benefits.

The results of an 11-year-study following the lives of 82 young people from the age of 14, showed that while many did well at school, things went awry once they turned 16.

Rachel Hewett, from the University of Birmingham’s Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research, said: “The research identified key challenges once the young people transitioned into further education. Many found adjustments were not put in place in time and they had a lack of access to specialist support.

“Careers guidance often focused on keeping the young person in education, with limited support for transitioning into employment.”

Reasonable adjustments

Many barriers were observed once they moved into higher education, such as an inaccessible application process for UCAS and Disabled Students’ Allowance, inaccessible virtual learning environments and a failure from institutions to make reasonable adjustments.

This led to some withdrawing from courses, repeating modules or entire academic years, or leaving with a degree classification which they feel did not reflect their ability.

Tara Chattaway, head of education at the Thomas Pocklington Trust charity said: “We are calling on Government to bridge this gap and ensure the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, and their response to the impending SEND review, truly supports the aspirations and learning needs of vision impaired students.”

At the end of the study 66% of the remaining participants were in some form of employment, while 17% were not in education, employment or training, including seven young people who by the age of 25 had never experienced employment.