More room for rich foreigners as government cuts Disabled Students Allowance

This has also been covered on at least one of the other websites dealing with disability issues. And Mike is correct about the enormous benefit to society of providing support to disabled students. I know a lot of extremely articulate, intelligent people, who’ve been held back because of dyslexia. Society is certainly helped and benefited by schemes that can allow them to realise their intellectual potential, and assist them into jobs. This, however, is very much against the governing ethos of the Tories, who just want a cowed, fearful workforce, ready to take the most menial jobs without question, leaving the better paid, more rewarding and more powerful jobs left to be dominated by members of the middle and upper classes, their natural possessors, as they see it.

AS for the Tories reacting to recent research arguing that dyslexia isn’t actually a disability, this wilfully ignores and distorts what the researchers themselves are saying. They was a documentary on this on BBC 2 or Channel 4 about a year ago, which I watched with my mother, who had been a primary school teacher. As far as I can make out, the educationalists making this argument are simply saying that dyslexia is not radically different, and is merely a more extreme form, of more normal and milder reading difficulties. They are not, however, saying that support for people with such reading difficulties should be withdrawn. Indeed, quite the opposite. Much of the programme was actually about producing specialist text books and reading schemes to help people with dyslexia overcome it. This included the discussion of a particular staged reading scheme that did produce remarkable results in enabling those with the condition to overcome it when used properly. This is seems to be simply another case of the Conservatives appropriating a piece of liberal research, and then stripping it of its original intentions to use as another weapon in their campaign to deny the poor and marginalised education, work and opportunities.

Mike Sivier's blog

Some readers may find the above headline a bit strong, but please be assured – this is what it means.

Vox Political became aware of this story in two contrasting ways, as follows.

Firstly, from The Guardian: “From September 2015 [the government] will only pay for support for students with specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, if their needs are ‘complex’, although the definition of this, and who decides it, remains unclear.

“It will no longer pay for standard computers for disabled students, or for much of the higher specification IT it now subsidises.

“And it will no longer fund non-specialist help, likely to include note-takers and learning mentors. The costs of specialist accommodation will be met only in exceptional circumstances.”

Paddy Turner, of the National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP) is quoted: “This is going to have a disastrous effect on students with specific learning difficulties because it…

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