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IN TOUCH – Further Education Support; Braille versus Assistive Technology

TX:Ìý 29.06.2021Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH EMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, is the boom in assistive technology turning out to be the bane of braille?Ìý We’ll explore whether things like smart speakers and the ever-growing use of synthetic speech are leaving the use of braille as a minority sport and maybe even killing it off altogether.

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But first, one of the biggest ever studies of its kind has revealed some of the barriers faced by people who are blind or partially sighted when it comes to accessing further and higher education.Ìý The report, carried out by the Thomas Pocklington Trust and Birmingham University, tracked 82 students in England over a period of 11 years and found a significant lack of support in many colleges and universities leading to one in three people failing to find a job, even though they had the right qualifications.

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Well, Tara Chattaway is from the Thomas Pocklington Trust, so talk us through the key findings.

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Chattaway

We found that whilst some of the students had had some very good experiences, that there were barriers every step of the way.Ìý So, for further education there are barriers for mainstream education, in particular, rather than sixth form college, so that’s through accessing specialist support, accessing equipment and accessing accessible technology.Ìý Then through into university, there’s a brilliant grant called Disabled Students Allowance, which all the students said really helped them through their studies.Ìý But there were massive barriers in actually accessing that – it’s very complicated, you have to fill out several different forms, that at the time of this study were not accessible, they were Word documents and the Student Loans Company is now addressing that.Ìý Then there were issues in terms of because it’s a low incidence disability, sometimes it’s specialist equipment the students need to access and specialist support and the way that DSA is organised means that many students with vision impairment struggle to access that specialist technology and often will start university and then find that their support isn’t in place because it just – there isn’t the staff out there.Ìý And again that’s the way that DSA’s organised.Ìý So, we’ve heard from students in the study and through the work we do that start there – complete their first semester at university without any support in place because of delays in DSA…

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White

Right, so they’re actually behind right from the start?

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Chattaway

Right from the start, yes.

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White

We’ll come back to you about what we can do about some of these things but let’s talk to a couple of students about the experience they’ve had.Ìý George has just finished his second year studying at university, we’re not going to say which one because George still has to complete his third year.Ìý But, George, I mean, how has it been so far because you have had a number of problems haven’t you?

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George
It’s a mixed bag, to be perfectly frank.Ìý You get the tutors that are well aware of the situation and you get the tutors, from my experience, that either don’t care, don’t read or do not understand, which is a very big problem when you are at university and you’re studying a degree.

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White

Do you mean that it’s visual impairment they don’t understand, they don’t understand what the difficulties are?

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George

True, they do not understand.Ìý You go into university and you’re promised the world, which is great, especially if you want to academically achieve and unfortunately, when it doesn’t come out as what it’s supposed to be, you, all of a sudden, you’re now several steps behind everybody else.Ìý I mean this year alone, I’ll just take my last semester, there was not any physical resources, so to speak, for me to use until about week 10 and I have 12 weeks since semester two and when you get to about week 10 and you haven’t got any resources and you’ve got your exams and coursework due, you sort of just think to yourself – well, don’t know how I’m going to do this.

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White

And when you say resources, this is material, mainly, in a form that you can read – is that what we’re talking about?

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George

Exactly, yeah, I’m talking about the material that’s used within the classroom – so, the lecturers doing whatever they’re doing but if you can’t see it and what they’re annotating at the time, because there is a real value, that I believe anyway, there’s a real value between when the lecturer’s speaking and what they’re doing on the board.Ìý And even if you have that beforehand, that’s great, that’s one barrier achieved, but if you can’t see what they’re doing, you’re missing out very key bits of information.

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White

Presumably, you complained?

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George

Yes, I did.

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White

What happened?

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George

I got my – I sent off my complaint, there was an issue – they originally told me it was going to be done and dusted by, I think, April 30th, it then took them another month and then I received my complaint back, which was a very difficult read on many accounts because at the start – the way in which the complaints process do this, you either have your complaint justified, partly justified or not justified at all – and through the entirety of the response that I was given from the university it’s not actually clear if my complaint was at all justified and have had to ask it to be pushed up further, so it’s now on level two – sadly.

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White

One of the things that emerges from the report that we’re featuring, is the high drop out rate at university, you are carrying on, you’re persevering – was that a difficult decision?

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George

Oh yeah, no, without a shadow of a doubt, this year I wanted to pack it in, I’m not going to lie because next year is my third and final, I’ll be doing my thesis and I’ll be doing my, essentially, artefact that we have to produce and if it’s going to be a repeat of second year, I am very worried in my ability to achieve.

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White

Let me bring in Kia.Ìý Kia you did drop out of university because of the lack of support I think.Ìý I mean why, what – in a nutshell – what happened to you?

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Kia

So, I decided to study at a campus university as everything is nearby which is really helpful for someone who’s visually impaired.Ìý I was studying business with marketing and, unfortunately – unfortunately because everything was online, you had to access and when the website of the university is not accessible at all is really difficult.Ìý So, we had to upload our assignments on to the university website and when you upload your assignment it doesn’t load on to a new page or you don’t receive a message saying that this has been successfully uploaded and they wouldn’t let me resubmit and they said I would have to redo the whole of my first year and I decided to leave the university.

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White

So, you didn’t know that this had not – you felt that you’d uploaded it successfully but nobody told you that this hadn’t actually been the case?

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Kia

No.

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White

And was there no help available because presumably you knew you were struggling a bit with uploading it, there was no one you really felt you could ask to help?

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Kia

I actually called the receptionist because that was the only person available and they said we’re not allowed to help students upload their assignments.

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White

You’ve opted for the Open University, how is that working out?

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Kia

It is fundamentally better; I’m thoroughly enjoying it.Ìý And what’s been really good about the Open University, right at the beginning of the year, my lecturers called me and they said – we understand you have a disability, please can you let us know what size font and layout you need for your handouts, we want to help you as much as possible.Ìý And when I submit my assignments at the Open University, I receive an email saying – this assignment has successfully been uploaded.

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White

Tara Chattaway, these are very concerning examples, how common are those, how typical of the kind of things that George and Kia have been telling us?

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Chattaway

From the longitudinal study – Lost in Transitions – it found that some of the students had dropped out, I think three of the seven young people that still hadn’t found employment by the end of this study had dropped out of university because of these kinds of issues.Ìý Through out student support service, we’re also supporting students.Ìý We are supporting another student at the moment who has dropped out after her first term because of the lack of support at university.Ìý We’ve supported students through trying to get exams accessible who’ve had to resit exams, push their exams back.Ìý And the impact that it has on the students is quite phenomenal in terms of the stress levels.Ìý It also means that if you’re constantly having to chase your work and make sure things are accessible, resit your exams, sit your exams in the summer, it also limits your opportunity to engage with other parts of university life in terms of socialising, work experience.Ìý So, the knock-on effect and it’s their financial knock-on effect, as well, for some of those who are having to redo the years or drop out whilst still having to pay accommodation etc.

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White

Tara, there’s already anti-discrimination law, there has been for well over 20 years, which should prevent this kind of thing and you’d expect universities, of all places, to be somewhere where these laws would be properly observed – an academic environment.Ìý What’s going wrong and how can it be changed?

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Chattaway

Well, I think for some – there are some universities that are brilliant, we have spoke to some students where universities have just done amazing things.Ìý There’s a guy who’s recently graduated in his archaeology degree and the university were fantastic – they put all sorts of things in place.Ìý So, it can be done.Ìý I think sometimes universities just don’t know what to do and they don’t reach out to ask for advice and for guidance and they assume that what they’ve put in place is adequate, when it’s not.Ìý And sometimes, I think, it’s about sitting down and actually listening to the students and saying – okay, we don’t know what to do.Ìý And so then they – but they don’t and they don’t reach out to organisations such as Thomas Pocklington Trust and others for advice and guidance.

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White

Just one quick point, they almost all have student disability advisors, isn’t – aren’t they the ones perhaps who – individual lecturers – who might be struggling should go to?

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Chattaway

Yeah, they should because there should be a plan in place but sometimes, through the complaints that go through the universities, the university, once we’ve actually spoken to them, have put their hands up and said – we don’t – we just didn’t know what to do.Ìý

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White

Tara Chattaway, thank you very much indeed and also thanks to George and Kia.

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Do let us know your thoughts on this and the education system and the effect you think it’s having – is it failing blind and partially sighted people?

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You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk.

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Now when Louis Braille invented the reading system that took his name almost 300 years ago, it’s unarguable that it radically enhanced the lives of some blind people and I’d count myself as one of them.Ìý But it’s also true that braille is a complicated system to learn, it takes great sensitivity of touch and it’s only mastered comfortably by a pretty small proportion of the visually impaired population.Ìý And ever since well before the turn of this century other developments – digital technology, synthetic speech, smart speakers – have opened up many other ways of getting information when you’re blind.Ìý And although to some this will seem almost heretical, the idea regularly gets muted that perhaps braille has had its day.Ìý

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Strangely, it’s an argument we’ve rarely examined on In Touch, so maybe it’s time we did.Ìý Anna Janickyj teaches braille and assistive technology at Sense College, Loughborough and she’s one of those who thinks this subject should be opened up for discussion.Ìý And she’s recently written an article aimed at doing exactly that.

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Anna, first of all, a few facts.Ìý I mean roughly what percentage of blind people actually do read braille in the UK?

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Janickyj

Hi.Ìý I think it’s around 7% approximately, which isn’t – like you said – that is a small number and I think if you also add the fact that 50% of those with sight loss have additional needs, we’re looking at 43% who potentially may not be able to access braille because of the complicated nature of learning it.

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White

And those who do use it, what do they mainly use it for – are they all reading books or are there other reasons why people may use it?

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Janickyj

I think there was a recent study that showed that people tend to use it for three main purposes.Ìý So, for practical things and functional things like labelling, then they use it for reading non-fiction – newspapers, magazines – very rare – it’s not as prevalent for people to use braille to read fiction books, they tend to use audio books.

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White

So, why are we even discussing whether braille can survive?Ìý After all no one sane is debating whether print will survive.

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Janickyj

I think I’m sane, at least I hope I am.Ìý I’m not saying that print won’t survive, however, I do think that there will be a time, in the future, however many years in the future I don’t know, where technology will take over from print.Ìý So, books will still survive but I don’t think they will be in the tangible physical form, I think they will be done more – read using technology.Ìý

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White

But to get back specifically to braille, as things are at the moment, haven’t digital developments actually enhanced the usefulness of braille, it can be produced much more quickly than it could and without bulky books and paper, so that should make it easier and more popular to use shouldn’t it?

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Janickyj

You would think that braille technology would be – would make braille more available to others, apart from the 7% but this recent study showed that there were actually three barriers to the learning of braille.Ìý One of them was the promotion of braille, the second one was age and I would also add additional needs in there and the third one was that technology matched or surpassed what braille could actually do.Ìý And the majority of people in that report felt that braille was declining because of technology and only 16% actually owned a braille display because the rest of the study found braille technology to be too expensive.Ìý So, I think – I think you’re right, I think braille can survive if it’s used through technology but I think the technology has to be so much cheaper than it is now because if you compare a braille notetaker or a braille display with an iPad they can do the same thing but at a fraction of the cost.

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White

So, what you’re saying is that nowadays there are so many other ways to get information and that braille is a bit clunky for trying to do it that way on its own, that there are other ways – audio, ordinary audio, synthetic speech etc?

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Janickyj

In order for braille to survive, my view is – and it is just my view – that we need to look at braille and maybe reimagine it a little.Ìý I think when you introduced the fact that Louis Braille developed this form of reading and writing, to me, he was a revolutionary, he was somebody that was way ahead of the others of his time and he’s done this fantastic thing but I think, perhaps, now, we need to be thinking about how braille can be modernised a little, simplified a little, so that those people who have additional needs – the 43% who can’t learn braille could learn braille.

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White

So, how long has braille got, do you think?

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Janickyj

Ooh I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t want to put a date on it – 50 years maybe, 100 years before technology completely takes over and if it’s not caught up, I’m not sure.Ìý I think the numbers will probably keep reducing as the years go on.

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White

Well 50 years will see me out…

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Janickyj

Me too.

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White

…but it will be very interesting to see what other people feel about that.Ìý Anna Janickyj, thank you very much indeed.Ìý We’d really like your views on whether braille is coming to the end of its useful life and if it isn’t, what does it need to make it used by more people.

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Among future plans, we’re going to be discussing becoming a new parent when you’re blind or visually impaired and we’d love to hear your experiences of that.Ìý Did you face any particular difficulties of caring for a newborn posed by your visual impairment?Ìý Do let us know, how much help was available and how much help did you think you needed?

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You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk or you can leave messages with your comments on 0161 8361338 and you can also go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch where you can download tonight’s and many other previous editions of the programme.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio manager Jonathan Esp, goodbye.

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