Despite widespread support from the key sector bodies who make up the advisory group overseeing the commitment’s implementation, a new Advance HE report reflecting on progress calls on sector bodies, regulators and government to show the progress they are making with regards to improving support for disabled students.

The asks of the commitment are fairly straightforward – it does not ask providers to go much further than the basic things disabled students should be entitled to anyway, and asks that more is done by focusing and being explicit on accessibility.

It asks providers to review practices across the student journey, from open days and induction to graduation and employability. It also focuses on improving what the Disabled Students’ Commission calls the four Cs for creating a better experience for disabled students – consistency, certainty, communication and choice.

It was launched by the Disabled Students’ Commission in April 2023 to improve the nature of support provided for disabled students across their student journeys. It encourages providers to self-audit and make public to students, any gaps in delivery, and how they are going to address these.

Achievement of the commitment occurs when an institution publishes a delivery plan in consultation with its disabled students. This plan should be published annually and displayed in accessible formats that are accessible for current and potential students.

A particular challenge the commitment seeks to resolve is ensuring that disabled students are not disadvantaged due to not receiving the reasonable adjustments they are entitled to. I have heard too many stories of students having reasonable adjustment plans ignored, forgotten, or told it is “not possible” to make the changes they may need.

This commitment also applies to employers and sector bodies, encouraging universities to look at subject groupings, including PSRBs, to encourage reflection on teaching, learning, and assessment practice. Assessment in particular can be inadvertently exclusionary and is a regular bone of contention for disability practitioners and disabled students. There is regular inconsistency around processes, with differences in practice between courses and individual academics.

This can all be challenging for courses that have PSRBs attached to them. It can make the competence standards built into course outcomes appear even more rigid when an institution relies on the external body’s validation of a course.

But the fact remains that disabled students both need and are legally entitled to such adjustments, as has recently been discussed in the High Court. It leaves a sour taste to read that so few have signed up for a commitment that mostly outlines and encourages universities to be more public about things they should, in theory, be doing anyway.

There remains a wealth of data, including our own Belong research, that demonstrates disabled students are consistently more lonely, don’t feel part of the university community, and have poorer outcomes and experiences. There is also the disproportionate impact of issues affecting students, like the cost of living and lack of confidence.

Maybe the sector is suffering from charter fatigue. In an attempt to alleviate this and encourage more sign-ups, Advance HE has added additional avenues of support to make signing up easier, including a mapping template for providers to formulate their action plans.

Perhaps the theory of change is faulty. There’s a whole page in the report dedicated to it, but it doesn’t really address the elephant in the room – that providers may not be clamouring to compete to recruit disabled students in the same way that other gongs and symbols are used to send signals to applicants.

But maybe the problem is the framing. We know that when students are squeezed for time and money, participation in optional or voluntary activity that does not have a direct impact on passing their degree starts to suffer.

And so as the universities where they study feel that squeeze too, it’s inevitable that participation in something optional that has little reputational or regulatory consequence falls off the to do list.

If the experience from other parts of education is anything to go on, the irony is that the squeeze may be resulting in providers not only not aspiring to be the best in this area, but failing in their basic duties to make education accessible too.