An Investigation into the Participation of Students with a Disability in Higher Education Institutions within England

This piece of research investigated the participation of students seen as having a special educational need and a disability in higher educational institutions within England. The literature review found that students with a special educational need and a disability have low participation in higher education. Widening the participation of students with special educational needs and disabilities has been promoted by the government and in 2001 they expanded the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) with a section widely known as the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001) or SENDA. There were two aims to this piece of research and these were to look at the participation of students with a special educational need and a disability, and to investigate factors that may impact the participation of students with special educational needs and disabilities. The research consists of statistical analysis on secondary data for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and a case study on one higher education institution that is successful in attracting and including students with special educational needs and disabilities. Altemative research methods are discussed within this report. The research methods I had chosen to carry out have both strengths and weakness. The main weakness to the statistical analysis was the way in which the participation of students with a special educational need and a disability had been measured. Unfortunately, the case studies findings were weak due to the research methods that I implemented. The findings for this piece research were based on the statistical analysis. The research found as the literature suggests that some higher educational institutions do not have participation from students with special educational needs and disabilities and in some higher educational institutions the participation from these students is low. Generally the participation of students v\nth special educational needs and disabilities is consistent with the number of non-disabled students. The research found that new universities have a higher participation of first degree and undergraduate degree students with a disability compared to old, colleges and specialist universities. Regionally the East Midlands have the highest participation of first degree students with a disability and the North East has the highest participation of undergraduate degree students with a disability. The research found that funding had an impact on the participation of students with special educational needs and disabilities