We know that the need for learning support is increasing. At Lund University, the number of students granted learning support has tripled since 2011 and the most common reasons are dyslexia and neuropsychiatric functional impairments. I do not know why the need is increasing. Neither do I think that the increase in itself is the problem. As I understand it, it has not become easier over time to be granted support.
What I do know is that learning support is not about making education easier, but about addressing the learning environment so that the students find themselves in a comparable situation. Most of us who teach have met, or will meet, students who have different needs for adaptation in order to manage their studies. Sometimes it is difficult to know how to make teaching optimally accessible and inclusive, and what could be considered an appropriate adaptation.
Perhaps we should also focus less on learning support as a single issue and more on how we work to achieve accessible and inclusive teaching. Accessible teaching concerns making the learning environment accessible for students with specific needs for adaptation. Inclusive teaching is about making the learning environment accessible for as many as possible. Inclusive teaching is also based on the principle that adaptations which benefit an individual student will also benefit the whole group and that this in turn can lead to educational development.
Today, we have units that are involved in learning support, study counselling and educational services. We are also working on the learning environment within the frameworks of student health issues, professional development in teaching and learning in higher education and in preventive work against discrimination. We are doing a lot of good work. But we need to be more coordinated.
We have therefore tasked the Unit for Educational Services with working in a focused way for a two-year period to strengthen forms of accessible and inclusive teaching. I am very pleased that Ann-Catrin Johansson and Lotta Åbjörnsson will be running the project.
They will be focusing on three areas. The first concerns planning, implementing and evaluating professional development initiatives in teaching and learning in higher education. The second relates to proposing university-wide working methods, guidelines or similar. The third concerns the setting up of an advisory entity. The aim is to provide the faculties or equivalent with advice and guidance on how teaching and learning environments can be optimally designed for students who need learning support.
/ Jimmie Kristensson
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