An international expedition: improving the post-secondary education participation of deaf young people and adults

The aim of this Fellowship was to visit international institutions that provide high quality educational models which support deaf students participating in vocational education and training (VET). The countries visited were the UK, USA and NZ. The Fellowship also provided an opportunity to participate in the largest higher education conference for professionals working with students with disability, AHEAD 2016, which included a stream dedicated to issues affecting deaf and hard of hearing learners. The author notes that for deaf people in Australia, access to post-secondary education can be rather haphazard and unstructured. Support services provided may not be sufficient to ensure that deaf students are able to successfully complete their degrees. To ensure increased participation and capability of deaf students in post-secondary education, it is vital that a new and holistic national model of support be introduced. One such model, the three-tiered inclusion model, is proposed in this report and highlights a move away from just addressing barriers to communication access but considers holistic education, addresses inclusion and embraces full participation in education. It focuses on a strengths based approach which builds on the potential capabilities of individual deaf students.

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