Scottish
Disability
Team
NB This is the final page of the online version of the SDT Guidance Note Guidance On International Courses and Disability Issues, published in April 2007.
Having already outlined above that a "home" university will have obligations, both under its general duty of care to its students as well as under the DDA, how should these obligations be managed by the university?
Where a university is contracting a lot of the running of its own foreign campus to an organisation abroad, or where the host institution itself is responsible for the provision of an international course, the university should ensure that it has suitable contractual arrangements in place with the organisation/host institution clearly defining the responsibilities of each party in relation to making provisions for any disabled students.
Considerations should include:
Universities should bear in mind, however, that any contractual arrangements which may be in place between the parties shall not in any way negate their continuing obligations to their students in relation to both the DDA and the general duty of care which they owe to all of their students.
Under Part 4 of the DDA, if the university might reasonably have been expected to know that a student might need adjustments to be made before studying abroad, it may not be able to claim that it did not know that the student required such adjustments - even if the student did not choose to tell the university that s/he had an impairment.
The development of an environment in which disabled students are encouraged to make such disclosures, and in which students are invited to disclose prior to non-standard teaching elements, is therefore highly recommended in order to encourage as much prior disclosure as possible and assist the university in assessing what reasonable adjustments may be necessary.
The duty to make reasonable adjustments is anticipatory. This means making adjustments in advance, insofar as is possible. In the context of arranging study abroad for students, this will also mean ensuring that diverse student requirements are taken into account by the university. This could involve:
Where possible, any information disclosed by a disabled student to a "home" university, which is necessary for making reasonable adjustments for study abroad, should be used to inform external providers of the international course. An institution must be aware, however, that the use and transfer of information about disabled students is restricted by the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Universities should seek permission from the student to pass on information necessary for making reasonable adjustments, and should inform students what use will be made of the information they disclose and ensure that procedures are in place to keep personal information confidential.
Where a disabled student requests confidentiality under Part 4 of the DDA, then information should not be passed on to the institution outside of the UK, even for the purposes of making reasonable adjustments. This might lead to a lesser adjustment, or no adjustment at all, being made for the student. Where a student agrees that disclosure may be made to certain staff at the institution outside of the UK, it will be more likely that an adjustment, or a lesser adjustment, can be made for the student.
However, Part 4 of the DDA does not override the general duty that a university has to protect its students. There may therefore be exceptional circumstances in which the university comes under a duty to disclose information, even against the student's expressed desire for confidentiality.