Today I will speak about an excellent organisation based at Macquarie University called Macquarie Customised Accessibility Services—M-CAS for short. Its Centre for Flexible Learning is doing wonderful, innovative work making university studies available to students with a wide range of print and learning disabilities. Directed by Sharon Kerr with a dedicated staff of 70, M-CAS is committed to providing its specialist services directly to students at Macquarie University and other universities, as well as to educational institutions throughout Australia.
It works this way: M-CAS disability liaison officers work closely with students from the start to find out what types of support they need and they then contact all the lecturers to obtain the required study and support materials of each course, which they proceed to convert into alternative formats for use with assistive technologies preferred by the student. Text can be converted into speech, complex diagrams can be presented in tactile forms, and information can be produced in Braille or other formats.
The philosophy of M-CAS is to recognise students as individuals who have their own access issues and needs and have developed their own preferred methods for learning. Various levels of support are required by students to achieve their independence as learners. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. As one student remarked:
I no longer actually have a disability once I am equipped with the same access to the study materials that all the other students have. I am competing on an equal footing, and that is great!
M-CAS also directly assists educational institutions across the country by ensuring that all recommended accessibility guidelines are met for its campuses. M-CAS is also able to assist with curriculum development and the review process. It can help with the testing of emerging technologies for students using assistive technologies and can provide resources such as checklists, guidelines and legislation overview, as well as provide training and support materials to university staff. M-CAS is committed to supporting all educational staff in their efforts to develop and deliver accessible curriculums in accordance with legislative requirements.
Most academic staff do not have specialist training regarding education for people with a learning or print disability, and many university lecturers have said that the work of M-CAS frees them to do what they do best, that is, prepare their course materials and continue their research. They can leave all the organising and technical conversion of course materials into the formats needed by students with a disability to the M-CAS staff. They know it will mean that their students will be able to participate fully in class, having access to all the same materials as other people.
The work of M-CAS benefits not only students. Business leaders with whom I have spoken are well aware that, with one in 20 people in the community having a disability, they now can reasonably expect to have a workforce reflecting the same statistic—and, with such accessibility to university studies that M-CAS makes possible, their future employees with a disability can be expected to have completed advanced education and to be as productive as employees without a disability.
That is good news for business. It also requires that initial commitment by management to make their workplaces accessible, along with the investment in assistive technologies, with the outcome being a win-win situation for everyone in the workplace and in the community.
I have toured the M-CAS headquarters and facilities of the cognitive sciences branch at Macquarie University; and I came away very impressed with the dedicated director and her staff undertaking this vital work. One student who is benefiting from the program is my friend Mr Jim Bond, the dedicated dyslexia advocate with whom I have worked for some years. Having not being able to read or write throughout his life, Jim is now thrilled to be completing an arts degree majoring in political science, made possible with the wonderful assistive technology and liaison officers at M-CAS. That is a real accomplishment for Jim, and for all other students who suffer from such learning difficulties.
I commend Macquarie Accessibility Services for the excellent work it does for students with a learning disability and all the institutions involved in their education.