• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / College and pioneering inclusion council criticised over ‘segregation’ claims

College and pioneering inclusion council criticised over ‘segregation’ claims

By John Pring on 1st February 2013 Category: News Archive

Listen

theweek120by150

Campaigners for inclusive education are appalled at the idea that Newham College is pressing ahead with the plans, despite Newham council’s ground-breaking work on inclusion.

Reports suggest the college is spending £1 million on the new project, which is being co-funded by the government’s Education Funding Agency and “developed in partnership” with Newham council.

The college this week refused to provide details, or to confirm that the project would offer segregated facilities.

But inclusive education activist Sarifa Patel, who lives in Newham, said: “Newham have always been pioneering to college age but when it comes to college they never thought about children going into mainstream.”

Patel, whose son has a hidden impairment and experienced the Newham education system, said: “We should be going forwards, not backwards. It’s morally wrong. We were the pioneers. Why can’t we be the pioneers in further education?”

Dr Ju Gosling, a leading disabled activist, who also lives in Newham, said she had “always been very proud of our record on inclusive education”.

But she said she had become “increasingly concerned about the reports from people with learning difficulties and their families about their experiences of segregation at Newham College”.

She warned that “taking young people who have been included in the mainstream from birth and isolating them from their peers at 16 sets them up for a lifetime of social exclusion”.

She added: “This is a retrograde step that will set us back decades, and people with learning difficulties and their families need everyone’s support to challenge it.”

Tara Flood, director of the Alliance for Inclusive Education, said: “How long have we all heard about Newham being at the absolute forefront of developing inclusive practice?

“I feel very sad at the potential for further education segregation when so much has been done in school inclusion.”

Newham council said in a statement: “This is a development in a mainstream college. It is in line with requirements from the Education Funding Agency. We remain committed to inclusive education.”

A spokesman added: “The limit of our involvement was that we were asked to support a funding bid, which we did.

“We want more young people with disabilities in Newham to be able to further their education and have the same opportunities as their peers. We believe Newham College’s plans meet that commitment and we fully support them.”

But the council has so far been unable to say whether it believes that the new facilities will be on their own floor, segregated from the rest of the college.

Janak Patel, the college’s deputy principal, said in a statement: “We educate students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities alongside other students but we also have specialist facilities that meet the specific needs of our students.

“The purpose of these improvements in our facilities is to ensure our students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities have the best resources available and in particular for students with autism.

“One of the aims of this project is to increase the number of students with autism who are educated at the college.”

The college declined to provide any details about its new development.

31 January 2013

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

Government ‘bans’ thousands of disabled fans from sporting test events

Rail companies apologise after Prince Philip ‘mark of respect’ leaves websites inaccessible

Government rejects chance to promise inquiry into COVID deaths of disabled people

‘Concerning silence’ from government over disability ambassador roles

Atos, Capita and Maximus ‘send almost no safeguarding referrals to councils’

Campaign calls for supermarkets to scrap delivery charges

Apple ‘forced by EHRC to back down in face mask discrimination row’

DWP staff admit inflicting ‘psychological harm’ on claimants during coalition years

Government ‘treats disabled people with contempt’ by handing £2.4 million to charities

Legal threat to PM over lack of BSL interpreter in £2.6 million briefing room

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web