By Mike Styles
Plans are underway to create and implement a Dyslexia Friendly Quality Mark for New Zealand tertiary education institutions. The initiative has been funded by the Tertiary Education Commission, under contract to Ako Aotearoa – Academy of Tertiary Teaching Excellence. The project will take around 18 months to fully bed in and was inspired by the work done by the British Dyslexia Association to set up a Dyslexia Friendly Quality Mark in the United Kingdom. New Zealand has, to date, done very little to meet the needs of neuro-diverse learners. There is a history of denial of dyslexia in New Zealand and there is little institutional knowledge of dyslexia and other neuro-diverse conditions, even inside the education sector. Despite the fact that ten percent of the population have dyslexia, there is little expertise and research infrastructure to support improved awareness and support for neuro-diverse learners.

Quality Marks exist in many sectors. A Quality Mark is a rigorous standard that an organisation must meet that indicates the quality of the service they provide. A Quality Mark is awarded by an independent body (in this case likely to be Ako Aotearoa), is voluntary and needs to be endorsed at regular intervals to ensure continuing quality. In the case of the Dyslexia Friendly Quality Mark, the standards would apply to all areas of the organisation’s operations, from senior leadership to the delivery of education and training in individual classrooms and support for individual learners.

In an ideal world, best practice to support dyslexic learners would start at primary school level and move through to higher education. That way children with dyslexia or other forms of neurodiversity would be identified early and supported before they experienced too much failure. Sadly, that is not happening, but we live in hope. Like all significant changes this initiative is being driven by a small number of determined people, who just happen to work in the tertiary sector.

In Aotearoa New Zealand the Treaty provides Māori with rights in all areas of society. While there is no evidence that Dyslexia impacts differentially on Māori learners it is well established that Māori underachieve in literacy generally. It is important that what is implemented in New Zealand is completely inclusive of the needs of Māori. In addition, there are significant populations of Pasifika peoples. Both Māori and Pasifika are priority groups in New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Strategy.

ACE providers will see the Quality Mark as a vehicle to improve enrolments and effectively promote their institution as well as improve the quality of their provision

The final product developed must be fit for a New Zealand purpose. New Zealand is an informal and egalitarian country and any initiative needs to tread the fine path between being sufficiently rigorous but not being overly bureaucratic. Policies and procedures are very important, but the criteria for success will hinge around “does the Quality Mark make an observable difference for dyslexic learners?”

The landscape in New Zealand is currently further complicated by a major review of the tertiary education sector. The only part not directly impacted is the University sector. The other parts of all post -secondary education will undergo major changes over the next two years. This is significant because anything introduced will need to be sufficiently future proofed to survive the current restructuring. In New Zealand the tertiary sector takes many shapes. The ACE sector is an essential component of the New Zealand tertiary education landscape. Because many people with dyslexia will not have had a successful initial experience of education the proportion of people with dyslexia using ACE services will be very high. This is an added reason why ACE providers should explore ways to provide services to dyslexic learners that are as dyslexia friendly as possible.

There is real value in adopting the Dyslexia Friendly Quality Mark. Firstly, ACE providers will see the Quality Mark as a vehicle to improve enrolments and effectively promote their institution as well as improve the quality of their provision. Secondly, the standards that surround the DFQM relate directly to the general quality of education provision in the organisation. It is well known that educational practices for learners with dyslexia are good for other learners as well.

“If the Quality Mark is seen just as more compliance it will die a sudden death,” is the refrain from many people in the sector. With this in mind we are embarking on a promotional programme to “warm up” educational providers that the Quality Mark is in the pipeline. It will be promoted as an opportunity for education institutions to have a point of difference. In our development phase we have consulted with other sectors, like tourism and construction who have quality marks already established. Institutions who are awarded the Quality Mark will be able to display an obvious (yet to be designed) logo, signifying their status as a follower of best practice in service provision to learners with dyslexia.

The current vision is that a central feature of the final Dyslexia Friendly status of an educational institution will be a very visible and clearly displayed Charter. The charter will articulate just what support and services a learner with dyslexia can expect inside that institution. It will be a commitment by the organisation to its learners with dyslexia and other forms of neurodiversity. We recognise that many adults with dyslexia do not even contemplate tertiary education and the charter will go some way to making them feel more welcome and safer inside tertiary places of learning.

Because New Zealand does not have a good general understanding of dyslexia, or what good practice would look like, we have designed a virtual model of the characteristics and features of a Dyslexia Friendly institution. This will be available for any institution contemplating a registration of interest in achieving the Quality Mark. In addition, there have been workshops and webinars delivered to individual tertiary educators around the country to increase general awareness of dyslexia

To qualify as a dyslexia friendly organisation an ACE provider would need to consider the following areas of its operation:

• Leadership and management
• Understanding of dyslexia by staff
• Effectiveness of resources and practices
• Continuing Professional Development
• Partnerships with learners, parents and partners.

The Dyslexia Friendly Quality Mark is a quality measure for organisations. It is envisaged that there also will be a Dyslexia Friendly Badge for individual tutors to confirm that they have up-skilled in best practice teaching and tutoring for learners who are dyslexic/neuro-diverse.

This is an exciting project to be part of, and it has the potential to make a big difference for learners with dyslexia. The initial response from government agencies and from tertiary education institutions is “this is a great idea whose time has come”.

Any ACE provider who has questions about this initiative, or who would like to comment on what is envisaged should contact Mike Styles at: tehoroboy@gmail.com