Submission to the Tertiary Education Commission. March 2005.

Access to the written word

Access to the written word is critical for education. Accessible formats (e.g. electronic text, audio, braille, and large print) enable blind and vision-impaired students to access the teaching and study material available to their sighted peers.

Accessible Format Production

Over the past six years the RNZFB accessible format production team has developed its staff to the degree that its skill level is better than it has ever been in the history of the department. The team, which is looked to as the national leader in producing formats that are accessible to people who cannot read standard print, produces material under contract to individual tertiary institutions, the Ministry of Education, government departments, and community and business organisations.

Format production standards

The ability to verbalise graphic information (perhaps in addition to enlarging the image or making it tactile) is a core skill for all RNZFB accessible format producers. Readers who do not get access to the meaningful pictorial material and diagrams in publications are not able to experience or understand the whole work. The Foundation undertakes accessible format production in accordance with internationally recognised standards and guidelines.

Tertiary code of practice

Read the Code.

The Foundation welcomed the introduction of Kia Ōrite Achieving Equity: New Zealand Code of Practice for an Inclusive Tertiary Education Environment for Students with Impairments, and endorses the approach to a tertiary education system which is as comprehensively inclusive as the New Zealand Disability Strategy requires.

Unmet need

There is evidence that tertiary institutions believe they cannot meet the costs of some accessible formats, principally braille. This is doubtless a factor in fewer requests for braille being forwarded to the Foundation by the tertiary sector. The Foundation does not believe it is ethical to allow voluntary giving to the Foundation through Blind Week and other appeals to meet the production costs of accessible formats for students. Such funding would not be sustainable and so essential reading material would be available only at the whim of the donor public.

Need for a centre of excellence

The Foundation requests that through its strategic plan the TEC investigate centrally funding a national accessible format production facility operated on its behalf by the Foundation. Tertiary institutions would be able to use this service rather than paying on an item by item basis for those formats they cannot produce locally - or, in effect, rather than not funding as much as they should because readers are encouraged to accept a non-preferred format that is cheaper.

Individual tertiary institutions do not have the skill or capacity to produce braille that conforms to the codes as determined by the Braille Authority of New Zealand. Demand is unpredictable, and so a national producer funded centrally is the cost effective way of ensuring all braille reading students have the ability to access their preferred format.

Braille is not the only format for which central funding might be appropriate. Other formats that may prove too specialised or time consuming for individual tertiary institutions to produce include full-length books in structured audio (human narration or synthesised speech). The expertise required to verbalise diagrams and graphs is not casually acquired but is a professional skill. For that reason the Foundation's producers follow internally recognised guidelines, and unit standards to cover the competencies they require are under development.

It is likely that a national accessible format production facility would be the sole producer of some formats required at the tertiary level, e.g. braille. In the case of some other formats the centrally funded facility might provide training to tertiary institutions so they could produce accessible formats of an appropriate standard. 

In fact, disability support staff within tertiary institutions have repeatedly told the Foundation that they need assistance to establish applicable standards for the production of electronic text. They also require support for competency development in producing large print, electronic text, and audio.

Sector leadership

A national accessible format production facility would be able to provide leadership to the tertiary sector in developing and applying solutions so that students with print disability could have more equitable access to reading material. One example of such activity would be working to promote a standard electronic file format for the storing and re-use of published materials. Compare with the development of a pre-tertiary National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard in the United States of America. Follow this link to read about NIMAS.

This initiative should sit alongside others designed to address the quality issues identified above (e.g. the need for national standards to guide the production of electronic text).

Conclusion

The Foundation is hopeful that the finalised TEC strategic plan will:

• Model inclusiveness in respect of students with disability and reference the New Zealand Disability Strategy.
• Refer to Kia Ōrite Achieving Equity: New Zealand Code of Practice for an Inclusive Tertiary Education Environment for Students with Impairments.
• Address the issues of unmet need for accessible formats, the quality of "accessible" information produced by institutions, and access to education opportunities experienced by students who are blind, deafblind and vision impaired.
• Make detailed reference to disabled people and a model of disability such as that advanced in the New Zealand Disability Strategy.
• Make room for the experiences of blind, deafblind and vision-impaired students who transition from secondary to tertiary education to inform joint policy work to be undertaken with the Ministry of Education to understand and improve access.
• Link learning and research with the need to increase opportunities for disabled people to participate in employment and economic development.
• Give a lead in creating inclusive teaching and learning environments.
• Investigate centrally funding a national accessible format production facility to serve the tertiary sector.
• Encourage research into and analysis of the experiences of disabled students and into the barriers that prevent disabled people from entering or succeeding in tertiary education.
• Encourage monitoring of charters and profiles in line with the New Zealand Disability Strategy action 2.7: "Evaluate New Zealand's performance on the rights of disabled people".
• Reference the New Zealand Digital Strategy.