Why this project?

Deaf and HI students often are underrepresented in Higher Education contexts: this can result into poor academic outcomes and higher levels of withdrawal (Bell and Swart, 2018). Further to this, we know that 11 million people in the UK are deaf or hard of hearing and 151,000 are BSL users (UK Government 2017). HESA (2019), however, reports that only 5,275 Deaf and HI students (0.2% of the total student population) started university in 2017-2018 and from those 46% were still waiting for the support that would enable them to start university after their course begun, with 59% still waiting two months later and 28% six months later.

We feel passionate about changing this by consulting Deaf and HI students and putting appropriate staff training in place in order to improve the student experience and participation for Deaf and HI students.

 

References

Bell, D. and Swart, E. (2018) Learning experiences of students who are hard of hearing in higher education: Case study of a South African university. Social Inclusion, 6 (4), pp.137-148.

 

Higher Education Statistics Agency (2019) Who’s studying in HE?: Personal Characteristics. HESA online, Available from: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/whos-in-he/characteristics [Accessed 12th September 2019].

 

NHS England (2015) Action Plan on Hearing Loss. NHS online Available from: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/act-plan-hearing-loss-upd.pdf [Accessed 12^th September 2019].