Save the Dundee University Disability Access Centre

The University of Dundee senior management is currently carrying out a review of the Disability Services which the University provides, including the Access Centre. They have already indicated in meetings with staff and their union representatives that they are going to consider closing the Access Centre completely, or instead reducing it to a smaller facility available only to Dundee students.

The Access Centre provides assessments for disabled students so that they can apply for funding from the government to help them study; without it disabled students at Dundee would have to travel to either busy Edinburgh or distant Motherwell for these assessments.

Moreover the Access centre actually generates revenue for disability services, as it provides disability assessments for students all across the east coast of Scotland in many different institutes; the Scottish government pays it to do this.

The profit generated by providing this service is used to fund additional front-line services to disabled students at Dundee University, which are amongst the best in the world. If this funding was to cease then all disabled services at the University would be badly hit, and many would have to be cut altogether.

Therefore if the Access Centre was to be closed or badly reduced then not only would disabled students at the University have to make difficult trips elsewhere for assessments but also the disabled services at the University would be severely hit as well. This could easily decimate the number of talented disabled students at the University, and would be both foolish from a business perspective as well as morally repugnant.

Thus this petition calls upon the University of Dundee senior management to keep the Access Centre fully open in its current format, and to recognise the link between the funding the Access Centre provides and the capabilities of disabled services at the University. Please sign and leave a message, perhaps telling the University how the closure would affect you, your views on the matter or a message of support. Thank you.