Universities will need to change their governance, accountability and reporting next year in order to keep receiving disability support funding.
University of Queensland Law Professor Paul Harpur, a leading advocate and expert on disability rights, has been a key figure calling for the change, and will tell the Future Campus HE People & Performance Conference that a range of changes will be required including:
- A disability governance committee as a subcommittee of the university’s principal governing body, which includes not only staff and students with a disability but also a member of the executive as members
- Disability workforce and education strategies and key performance indicators in place to improve disability support and inclusion
- Publishing of strategies on accessible university websites.
The changes, announced by Ministerial Direction, mean that most universities will need to act quickly to introduce the new approaches in order to keep getting access to disability support funding, which was quadrupled by the Government in 2024.
Professor Harpur said the changes were significant.
“They actually require that this disability committee has oversight over how the university uses its funds for disability, which is a big step up,” Professor Harpur will tell the conference.
The new workforce and education strategies would have to be developed in conjunction with people with disabilities and resourced to achieve milestones, Professor Harper will say
“For me, the easiest place for any university is to stop worrying about the regulations and start worrying about your people,” he will say today.
“Just because you’ve got a plan doesn't mean that it’s implemented and doesn’t mean there is people to implement it.”
Just over 21% of Australians have a disability, and 27% of school students identify as having a disability, but representation within the higher education sector is much lower, with 12.7% of students and just 1-6% of staff in identifying as having a disability.
Professor Harpur will say that the significant proportion of secondary students with a disability and the emphasis of the Accord on growing the number of students with a disability enrolled in tertiary education meant that universities needed to act urgently to ensure they were ready to welcome more students with disability.
“This increase is happening as we speak.”