Dr David Moorhead
Access Unit for Deaf & Disabled Students
University of Bristol – United Kingdom
The MÁS project aims to provide deaf people with the skills to access education, training and work - acquiring ‘new generation’ skills, in IT, communication and language, and giving them greater control of their learning environment. It seeks to address the disadvantages faced by deaf people in accessing training and education, and the limited opportunities that exist for them to enter vocational training and work. These needs have been identified by each of the partners separately in their own countries, and collectively through the Leonardo da Vinci trainer exchange, ‘Preparing Deaf Students for Higher Education & Vocational Training.’ The project has partners in United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.
This project derives from a Leonardo da Vinci I-funded trainer exchange in 1998, which brought together partners from the three countries, and identified the different interests they had in pursuing common goals in the support of deaf & disabled students.
The MÁS project is funded by the Leonardo da Vinci II programme. Updated information of the project development will be publicly available at http://acceso.uv.es/mas.
This trainer exchange identified a number of key issues in deaf people’s needs and experience of education and training in the three partner countries:
· students and trainees are generally not prepared for education and training, simply recruited or enrolled
· institutions and generalist training providers are not prepared, particularly for the participation of non-traditional students
· where formal preparation programmes for staff or trainers are attempted, these are often ad-hoc, because of a lack of institutional integration (Spain), dependent on special initiative funding (Spain and Germany), or responding to specific support needs of students once they have arrived (UK)
· access to study is facilitated by either giving students greater access to the written language of the institution (Spain) or using sign language as the medium of access (Germany) or a combination of both of these (Spain, through SIMICOLE-Reading Comprehension with Sign as Scaffolding programme; UK, through programmes of individual language support and sign language interpreting in lectures and seminars; Germany, through tutor-students) There are identifiable limits to all these approaches
· access to and participation in education and training for deaf people in all three countries is still very dependent on special programmes and initiatives, and the short term funding attached to these. To be effective for trainers and successful for students in the long term, preparation and support need to be as much a part of the institution as possible, and to be embedded in the institution's strategies and policies. This means that staff training, accessible teaching and learning programmes, support services and disabled students themselves are seen as part of the mainstream of the university and the responsibility of all
· students need access to programmes to develop language skills, study skills, and an understanding of the ethos of the institution or agency; to build their confidence, and to learn how to make the most of their training or educational experience; to learn how to manage support workers, equipment and assistive technology; and to give them skills that they can transfer to different studying and learning environments
The project aims to provide deaf people with the skills to access education, training and work - acquiring ‘new generation’ skills, in IT, communication and language, and giving them greater control of their learning environment.
It seeks to address the disadvantages faced by deaf people in accessing training and education, and the limited opportunities that exist for them to enter vocational training and work. These needs have been identified by each of the partners separately in their own countries, and collectively through the Leonardo da Vinci trainer exchange, ‘Preparing Deaf Students for Higher Education & Vocational Training.’
The learning environment is changing rapidly in higher education, in vocational training and in work-based training. The impact of new technologies is marked, both on the way people work, and on the way they learn or are trained. Throughout Europe, there are moves to widen opportunities for people who are disadvantaged in access to training and employment, as part of life-long learning and as a means of addressing issues of social exclusion. In Spain and Germany, specific programmes such as Acceso 25 and PotsMod have sought to address the needs of deaf people as returning learners, and the exclusion of deaf people from professional training; in the UK there is a longstanding commitment to recruiting ‘non-traditional’ students and promoting Key Skills programmes.
There is increasing use of on-line teaching, as a means of addressing the problem of shortages of teachers and teaching time, and decreasing face-to-face contact, but also as a means of widening access and participation.
New technology offers great opportunities for widening participation in learning and in the job market, especially for those groups of people who have traditionally been at a disadvantage in gaining access to educational and employment opportunities. In order to make the best use of these new opportunities, these groups of people will need the skills to access and use new technologies. These need to be key skills that are transferable into different learning situations and into work. Most IT skills training in the UK, for example, is focused on learning about particular programmes (Word, Excel, NT) and not about developing the skills for individuals to make the best use of new technology in life-long learning and in the workplace to their particular advantage.
A number of courses exist in the UK that address some of the issues about preparing deaf students for learning and training, but these are location-specific (Derby, Wolverhampton, Reading). The same applies with courses and facilities being developed in Valencia and Magdeburg. One of the key functions of this project is to develop delivery methods that enable students ‘any time, any place’ to access existing preparation and skill courses, and to use online and distance teaching that can deliver new programmes, and improved access to existing ones.
The project will develop a model to present existing training courses and new modules flexibly, using open and distance learning and online teaching. It will address the following issues:
· Developing online, distance & open learning access to new and existing programmes and courses for deaf people, who are disadvantaged in the training and employment market
· Investigating how to make these courses available to deaf people at any stage in their learning experience - at college, in work, seeking work - thus enhancing their education and training opportunities
· Developing a model of training that makes it available ‘any time, any place’ to meet the changing needs of users and improving their employment prospects
· Providing guidance to deaf people who use training, to the organisations and institutions that provide it, and to agencies employing deaf people about providing effective access through preparation, support and language
· Designing three modules to enable users to acquire skills in the use of C&IT and to study that are adaptable and transferable to different environments, widening the range of their educational, training and employment opportunities
Aims:
· To develop a preparation programme to help deaf students to participate in training, education and employment opportunities, and to evaluate its national and transnational application
· To investigate and develop online teaching of such a programme, to widen access to training for deaf people
· To report on issues about the transnational application of the programme and the delivery mechanism
Aims:
· To develop a reading comprehension programme, and test/evaluate its national and transnational application
· To investigate and develop computer-based teaching and learning in the delivery of such a module, using SIMICOLE as a model
· To report on issues about the national and transnational application of reading comprehension programmes, and of computer-based teaching as a delivery engine
· To develop a training programme for sign language interpreters and support workers, and to test/evaluate its national and transnational application
· To investigate and develop open and distance teaching of such a programme
· To report on issues about the national and transnational application of the programme and the delivery mode
The partnership builds on an existing European partnership between Germany, Spain and the UK, and brings together national partnerships between universities, user groups and social partners. In Germany, this is between the Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal, the Landesverband der Gehorlosen Sachsen-Anhalt and the Bundesverband der GebaerdensprachdolmetscherInnen Deutschlands e.V.; in Spain, between the Universitat de Valencia and FESORD; and in the UK, between De Montfort and Bristol Universities, and Leicester Centre for Integrated Living. Deaf people will be actively involved in the development, evaluation and dissemination of the project in all three countries.
Bristol is a major research university in the UK. It has an international research centre in deafness at the Centre for Deaf Studies, and is a sector leader in the development of support services for deaf students, with a particular focus on the development of educational interpreting support and computer-based learning support. It has regional collaborative partnerships with other higher education institutions in the field of support services for deaf and disabled students, and is working in partnership with further education colleges in the area to promote the participation of deaf and disabled people in tertiary education, with a particular focus on preparing students for higher education. It will act as the secondary partner for the UK, working with Valencia and Magdeburg to make their modules useable and applicable in the UK
The BGSD is a national organisation representing German Sign Language Interpreters. It promotes sign language interpreting in Germany and maintaining the quality of professional standards. It gives a high priority to the development of professional training programmes for interpreters, especially in the education field. It will act as a national dissemination partner in the German module, using its contacts in the profession and with other organisations engaged in training, to promote the results form the project, and to help in the evaluation of the programme
De Montfort is one of the largest universities in the UK, with over 30,000 students studying at four different centres. It has always valued research and scholarship, and has a long research record. The Faculty of Social and Community Studies has a developing expertise in disability issues, and has been running research for the last six years concerning deaf students, students with dyslexia and blind students. The current focus is access for disabled students to vocational training, higher and further education, and has well-established connections with further education colleges. De Montfort will be the lead partner in the UK, with responsibility for developing the preparation module
FESORD CV stands for Deaf People Federation of Comunidad Valenciana. It is an organisation that represents and defends the interest of their member associations in the area of the Comunidad Valenciana in Spain. FESORD CV was established in 1979 as a non profit organisation. Presently it is composed of 14 local and regional associations. FESORD CV is member of the Spanish National Deaf Confederation (CNSE) which belongs to the EUD (Deaf European Union) and World Federation for Deaf (WFD). It will act as a social partner and a user group in the project, contributing to the evaluation and management of the Spanish module and its testing
LCIL is an organisation of disabled people, promoting their equal rights to full participation in society. It works closely with disabled people and the Deaf community in Leicester, and has an active partnership with the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), which is the major organisation for deaf people in the UK. It has extensive connections with training and employment agencies and programmes, such as the DfEE and Fresh Start.
It will advise the UK partnership on the broader application of the modules into regional and national training frameworks, and with national organisations of disabled people.
It is part of a Community partnership with agencies in Portugal and Belgium on the ICARUS and Accessible Europe programme.
It will act as the social partner and user group in the UK partnership, participating in the development, management and evaluation of the UK module.
H Magdeburg-Stendal is a University of Applied Sciences, and is one of the main academic institutions in the federal state of Sachsen-Anhalt. It has close links with institutions, companies and organisations in the region, and collaborates in joint international educational enterprises with other European countries, as well as China, Canada and the USA. It has introduced a degree programme in sign language interpreting in a planned move to developing expertise in disability studies. This course is the first of its kind in any University of Applied Sciences, and complements the course at the University of Hamburg. It has been extended to include deaf students, and will form the basis for a transnational module on access through language.It will act as both lead and secondary partner for the German module
Unidad de Investigacion ACCESO (Research Unit ACCESO) belongs to the Department of Educational and Evolutive Psychology of Universitat de Valčncia-Estudi General in Spain. ACCESO participates in projects where the information and communication technologies are applied to the development and education of people with physical and/or sensorial disabilities.
ACCESO has already already participated in 3 European projects ( 2 Horizon and 1 FEDER funded). It has expertise in the following working lines: Educational and social-labour integration of disabled people, Assistive Technologies, Psycho-educational evaluation, Teletraining and web accessibility.
ACCESO will be the lead partner in Spain, with responsibility to develop the module on preparation through support
The Landesverband is the main organisation of Deaf people in the federal state of Sachsen-Anhalt. It has more than a dozen local member organisations throughout the state, and is a member of the national German Deaf Association. It advocates Deaf people’s rights to communication, education and equal opportunities, promotes the interests of Deaf people in the region, and provides social, community and interpreting services. It will act as a user group in the project, participating in the management, evaluation and dissemination of the Magdeburg module
The Assessoria Universitŕria d’Estudiants amb Discapacitació is the Counselling Service for Disabled Students of Universitat de Valčncia Estudi General. Assesoria is one of the services provided by CADE, the Centre for Students Counselling and Animation. CADE belongs to DISE the Student Information Service of Universitat de Valencia.
Assessoria will be the secondary partner in Spain, working with De Montfort and Magdeburg to help make their modules applicable in Spain and accessible to users.