{"id":206023,"date":"2015-12-04T11:01:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T11:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=206023"},"modified":"2015-12-04T11:01:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T11:01:56","slug":"tories-slash-funding-disabled-university-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/tories-slash-funding-disabled-university-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories slash funding for disabled university students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative minister confirmed that the government will proceed with plans to cut funding for disabled students in higher education, leaving universities with no choice but to pick up the bill.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Thursday, Minister for Universities and Science Jo Johnson said institutions of higher education should expect to take <em>\u201cprimary responsibility\u201d<\/em> for many areas of support.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, disabled students rely on the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) to pay for support workers and specialist equipment.<\/p>\n<p>However, from next year, universities will be responsible for paying non-medical support staff, including note takers and readers.<\/p>\n<p>They will also be forced to reduce the prices of specialist accommodation and cover the cost of computer equipment for disabled students.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lW9dVQvuZgw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">DSA will continue to cover specialist support such as sighted guides for students who need help getting around campus.<\/p>\n<p>The National Union of Students (NUS) fear smaller institutions with a higher number of disabled students could be hit with a heavier bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The NUS is concerned the government\u2019s response to the consultation will impact the consistency of the support available and place a huge financial burden on some institutions<\/em>,\u201d an NUS spokesperson told the Guardian.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Johnson said: \u201c<em>The increasing numbers of disabled students entering HE is to be celebrated, as is the increasing numbers of those declaring their disability<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>However, it is possible that the continued provision of DSAs may have removed the urgency of some higher education providers to expand provision for all disabled students<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>\u2018Allowance is very important to disabled students\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>Disabled students in Plymouth have condemned the cuts, saying the DSA allowance is \u201c<em>very important<\/em>\u201d for their education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Students don\u2019t really understand what is going on yet, so we have been running events to make them more aware<\/em>,\u201d one student at Plymouth University told Plymouth Herald.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I\u2019m not sure of the exact number, but there is a high volume of students who receive the disability students\u2019 allowance [at Plymouth University]<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Many students have already told me that if they didn\u2019t have DSA, they probably wouldn\u2019t be able to do their degree without the support, so it\u2019s very important for their education<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n<p><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Via\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/324633-disabled-funding-cuts-tories\/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative minister confirmed that the government will proceed with plans to cut funding for disabled students in higher education, leaving universities with no choice but to pick up the bill. On Thursday, Minister for Universities and Science Jo Johnson said institutions of higher education should expect to take \u201cprimary responsibility\u201d for many areas of support. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-206023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}