Invitation to all of the SOAS community to attend the second Accessibility and Inclusion Forum on Monday, April 27th from 1:00-2:00 in the Brunei Suite.

In January the SOAS Accessibility and Inclusion Forum was organised following discussions by Students' Union and Student Advice and Well Being.  More than fifty participants, both students and staff, took part in this first event and further input was given at stalls in foyers and online. Thank you to everyone who contributed! The feedback has been collated and taken forward by the working group: please find this document summarising the key ideas that came out of the Forum which have been formulated into action points.

We hope to expand involvement across the School as we want this initiative to be owned by all. In order to take this conversation further we are holding a second forum with the aim of leading to some definitive actions.

The focus of the next event will be on INCLUSIVE LEARNING AND TEACHING and some of the themes suggested by attendees at the first forum were:- 

·         Inclusive learning, teaching and assessment

·         How can the library be more inclusive

·         How can on line materials be more inclusive

·         More support for new students

This session will take place on Monday 27^th April, 1-2pm in the Brunei Suite (Brunei Gallery), which will hopefully lead to some definitive actions. We hope that as many students and staff can come as possible to engage in School-wide conversations on making learning and teaching more inclusive. For more information about inclusive learning and teaching please see the section at the bottom. 

Inclusive learning and teaching is only one element of the Accessibility and Inclusivity Project, which relates to the School as a whole. Please have a look at this document about the discussions on this from the last Forum and action points! This is a long process, but we hope to be able to bring about some improvements by next academic year, and that this project will be taken forward and continually reassessed over the coming years through widespread engagement from the community.  

We hope you can join us on 27^th April – and please spread the word to fellow students and staff as we hope to have as much involvement from the community as possible! If you can’t make it but would still like to be involved please email gr14@soas.ac.uk

If you are attending the session and have any access requirements, please email diversity@soas.ac.uk

* More information about Inclusive Learning & Teaching *

In the context of impending government cuts to the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) and underfunded and overstretched support services at SOAS, it is urgent that we make learning and teaching more inclusive. Student demand for support, whether it relates to learning and academia, disability, or mental or emotional or other, is far outstripping current levels of provision.

Levels of stress and anxiety have been significantly increasing among both students and staff, and some students are having to wait 4 weeks for an appointment with the counselling service due to lack of resources. With the number of students with disabilities, specific learning difficulties and mental health difficulties increasing every year, and the DSA being cut as of next year, support within SOAS must be increased to meet student’s needs.

There are significant attainment gaps affecting black students, women and working class students, for example a significantly lower proportion of black students have been awarded First Class qualifications in comparison to white students (2.2% of black students, compared with 27.4% of white students in 2014). Racialised and gendered pay gaps persist among staff. There is a 22.6% drop out rate among students with disabilities. There is not enough support for student parents and carers to study. There are number of issues with non inclusive teaching practices and forms of assessment, problematic and unrepresentative curricula, and instances of discrimination within teaching and assessment.  

These are just *some* of the problems relating to learning and teaching. The aim of this next session on 27^th April is to look at these issues in closer detail and discuss ideas for tackling these problems and making education more inclusive. Many staff are also feeling stressed and overstretched. We believe that a School-wide effort is needed to tackle these issues and to develop structures and allocate resources that can provide adequate support for both staff and students.