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A snapshot of 2003-4: blind and partially sighted students in Higher Education in England and Northern Ireland

National Centre for Tactile Diagrams, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, UK

Sarah Morley Wilkins

National Centre for Tactile Diagrams, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, UK, info{at}nctd.org.uk

This survey explored the numbers and proportion of partially sighted, blind braille reading and blind non-braille reading students in Higher Education (HE) in 2003-4. As part of a HEFCE/DELNI funded project, all 134 disability offices in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in England and Northern Ireland were contacted by telephone and email, to collect information about the numbers of students, subjects and level of study for each of the student groups; and for blind braille readers also their year of study. Of 114 HEIs responding to the survey an estimated minimum of 1538 blind and partially sighted HE students in England and Northern Ireland were identified, representing 0.13 per cent of the total undergraduate student population of these HEIs. Of these students 90.8 per cent are partially sighted, and 9.2 per cent are blind (i.e. of the total undergraduate student population 0.12 per cent are partially sighted and 0.013 per cent are blind). Of blind students, nearly 66 per cent read braille. Of all blind and partially sighted students, 65.4 per cent were undergraduates, 8.5 per cent were postgraduates, with the level of study for the remaining students unknown. Popular areas of study for blind and partially sighted students included ‘Business Management and Accounting’, ‘Information and Computer Sciences’ and ‘Art, Design and Communication’.

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