David Willetts doesn't get it - we should be doing more to support disabled students, not less
The huge expansion of higher education under Labour in the 1960s was the big reform that meant people like my parents got to go to college. It was a change inspired by a simple principle; a principle at the heart of the famous Robbins report, which laid the ground-work for Harold Wilson’s creation of the polytechnics. University, said Robbins, “should be available to all who were qualified for them by ability and attainment”.
Today that principle is under threat from a careless, stupid, and dangerous reform of the support we give to help disabled students fulfil their dreams.
Disabled Students Allowance (DSA), created nearly 25 years ago, is to be ‘modernised’ . We know this is code for a savage cut. Last week in the Commons, Labour MP after Labour MP stood up to denounce the proposals. Nearly a hundred MPs have now signed the Early Day Motion calling for the changes to stop. And we also got the chance to congratulate the National Union of Students, where I started my political career, on a brilliantly fought opening in the campaign to force the government to think again....
Over the last month, campaigning on this issue, I’ve heard many powerful stories from people across the whole country. The campaign has now got to shift up a gear. We should be doing more to support disabled students, not less. Show your support for a new, better, modern DSA by signing this petition, asking the Government to think again about their proposals. If modernisation is needed, let us hear the arguments. If there are savings to be had, let us hear the targets. But we will not stand by while disabled students are given a bunch of proposals and told to like it or lump it....
(More at link):
http://labourlist.org/2014/07/david-willetts-doesnt-get-it-we-should-be-doing-more-to-support-disabled-students-not-less/
(As people may remember, I am anything but a fan of Liam Byrne in general; but I agree with him wholeheartedly on this point!)
