Striving for inclusive learning environments: The Unitec/MIT Disability Strategy

Disability, learning and inclusion

Disability is something that happens when the world is designed by people who assume that everyone is the same. When we apply that to a learning environment, like Unitec, we can see that learning environments are essentially designed for non-disabled learners, which creates barriers for disabled learners.

This has historically meant that disabled learners are one of the most educationally disadvantaged groups in New Zealand.

Inclusion, on the other hand, means recognising and valuing diversity and addressing the barriers that disabled learners and staff face every day.

The Unitec/MIT Disability Strategy project aims to enhance inclusion and reduce barriers for disabled learners at our institutions.

The project, sponsored by Simon Nash and Annette Pitovao and led by Katy Mann-Benn and Donna Cavell, began in July. The development of the strategy is underway, led by a Steering Group comprised of Heads of School and Directors and a panel of current students who represent the diversity within disability. We are working in partnership with MIT’s Sabrina Sharma, with four MIT students joining the student panel. The first hui was well attended and was a great success, allowing a forum for valuable discussion and sharing of ideas.

The first Steering Group hui

Since the first hui, the students have compiled some research on current Disability Strategies across TEO’s and they will present their findings at the next Steering Group meeting on September 30.

Student Panel – James, Ana, Anna, Louise, Jay, Vincent & Lotolagi

How can you help?

To gather more information and data the students would like to complete a survey asking you to share your knowledge on how we can be more inclusive of disability at Unitec.

Following this they will facilitate focus groups where staff and students will get another opportunity to provide input into the content of the Strategy.

With Steering group approval, a draft Strategy will be presented to ELT in December 2021.

The Access and Inclusion Survey 2021 is now open and we’d love to hear from you – please take a minute to complete the survey. We’ll also be sending the link out via email.

We would really value your input and support!

The Project Team

“When those who have the power to name and to socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you,

whether you are dark-skinned, old, disabled, female or speak with a different accent or dialect than theirs,

when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it,

there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing”

Adrienne Rich, poet, Invisibility in Academe (1986)