Modifying Systems and Structures Which Do Not Promote Equality and Diversity.

Last Updated on 12/11/2021 by James Barron

In many teaching organisations the learners are only entitled to 15-minute tutorials, this is very often insufficient. Personally, when I have deemed it appropriate I have let the tutorial session run long, deliberately adding particular students to the end of the session that I suspect will require additional support. Unfortunately, this isn’t a practical solution as I often miss a section of my lunch and I am not paid for this time. A simple solution would be to increase the time allotted to each student, allowing for the fact that the majority of tutorial sessions will be faster; this will allow flexibility within the tutorial system. Another approach could be to book double tutorial sessions to particular students, especially those with an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan). An issue that many city centre campuses have is a lack of parking, this is usually restricted to senior members of staff and disabled staff and students, unfortunately car parks, including disabled bays, are frequently full resulting in disabled students being unable to park onsite and having to leave and park in public car parks nearby, resulting in the student being late for class. An approach that would reduce the problem would be to prevent the majority of staff from parking in the car park, leaving it free for only those that truly required it. Teaching organisations often suffer with broken lifts and it takes long periods of time for them to be repaired, this has a huge impact on disabled students. A simple solution is the ability to relocate classes to rooms on the ground floor; however, this may have a negative impact on a disabled student as the entire class would need to move. Another, far more expensive but effective, solution would be the introduction of a secondary lift; it is highly unlikely that both would fail simultaneously. The functional skills curriculum doesn’t contain any equality and diversity material, as a result it is not taught. The best solution would be to implement a nationwide policy that equality and diversity should be included in all lessons in the form of embedded content, alternatively update the functional skills curriculum, this would be far quicker.