The first test case mounted under the new Special Educational Needs and Disability Discrimination Act 2001 raises a host of interesting and important issues.
The case involves an 11-year-old dyslexic boy rejected by Bacons City Technology College in London.
His solicitor sought a judicial review of the decision to bar him - partly because he lacked aptitude for technology (“School claims it is exempt from disability laws”, TES, September 6). The judge will have to decide whether the law covers CTCs, technically private institutions. He will also have to consider whether discrimination laws take precedence over the college’s right to set admission criteria.
Other issues are whether the right to an education that reflects parents’
own philosophy and beliefs has been breached, and whether the boy’s dyslexia affects his technological aptitude.
The Act extends disability discrimination laws to state schools and also to designated independent schools that are wholly or partly publicly funded. All such schools must ensure that no disabled pupil is treated less favourably, without justification, than other children.
Some disabilities are obvious, but some may not fit into the legal definition: “physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on the ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. Since 1995 courts have determined that HIV is not a disability, though Aids is; hay fever is not, but epilepsy is, even if alleviated by drugs. People with severe disfigurements are also protected by the discrimination laws.
Reasonable adjustments should be made to premises, equipment, curriculum, and admission criteria, so the disabled are not disadvantaged. But there is no longer a requirement to alter premises. Local education authorities and schools must instead have “accessibility strategies”.
If there is a dispute over what is “reasonable”, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal has the power to resolve it. The Secretary of State (or in Wales the National Assembly) can also direct schools in such cases. Refer to: Part II of the Special Needs and Disability Discrimination Act 2001; Special Educational Needs Tribunal Regulations 2001; Disability Discrimination (Designation of Educational Institutions) Order 2002.
