At the Impact 25 Disability Confidence Awards, the University of Sydney was recognised for being a top organisation in the Australian Disability Network's 2024 Access and Inclusion Index.
With an overall score of 54 percent, we ranked third overall out of the 44 participating organisations and were the highest ranked education organisation.
The Access and Inclusion Index is provided by the Australian Disability Network. It’s a tool that supports organisations to identify, measure and progress their access and inclusion maturity for employees, candidates and customers with disability.
The Index assesses our disability inclusion across a range of areas including staff and student experience, procurement, marketing and communications, and digital and physical environments.
Professor Mark Scott, Vice-Chancellor and President, celebrated the achievement:
"The University of Sydney is committed to creating a culture of inclusion. Our Australian Disability Network Access and Inclusion Index results are a testament to the institution-wide efforts made to ensure all students, staff and visitors with disability have equal opportunities to excel within, and enjoy our university," he said.
"This result is a reflection of the successes and ongoing work of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan and our colleagues who work to make our University more accessible."
Equal access to learning
Our work to support students with disability has been recognised as we ranked first for customer experience.
We have implemented the Designing for Diversity program, which trains teachers to design accessible lessons. Additionally, we have increased our support for students with disability to ensure students all have equal access to learning.
We provided a number of programs to support students with disability, including reviewing first year chemistry labs to improve accessibility and independence for students who are blind or have low vision, pilot body doubling sessions for neurodivergent students, and dedicated quiet times at careers fairs.
"We are very proud to receive first place in the Australian Disability Index for the University’s Customer (student) Experience," Professor Joanne Wright, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) said.
"We remain committed to delivering accessible and inclusive services, programs, and courses, and will continue to do so in consultation with our student community."
This result is a reflection of the successes and ongoing work of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan and our colleagues who work to make our University more accessible.
Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Mark Scott
Improving accessibility
Our results in this index are a reflection of our work as part of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP). Launched in 2019, the DIAP set out to ensure that staff, students and visitors with disability have equal opportunities to excel and enjoy our University.
This plan has provided meaningful support for staff and students with disability, improved the accessibility of our infrastructure and developed training to improve our staff disability awareness.
Daniel Smith, Project Manager, Disability Inclusion Action Plan, discussed the work to achieve these results:
"The Index submission process brought together people from across the University to examine our disability inclusion practices. These results show that we’re making progress on our DIAP objectives and provide practical recommendations to further our disability inclusion agenda at the University," he said.
The Australian Disability Network made 56 recommendations for us to improve our disability access and inclusion.
These recommendations, in addition to staff and student consultation, will help inform the next Disability Inclusion Action Plan when it begins consultation later this year.
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