ABSTRACT
Imagine the following scenario. A tutor is responsible for lecturing to the whole of a particular year group on a popular course. There are three hundred students in his class. Of these, twenty have declared that they have a disability. This could result in the tutor having to make as many as twenty individual adaptations. Clearly, this would be very time-consuming and a significant additional burden for somebody already working at full stretch and in a context where other activities have higher priority. However, assume that adaptations are made and are successful for all students-except one who then chooses to take out a case for discrimination on the grounds that his needs arising from his disability were not met. Apart from being more time-consuming and potentially expensive in terms of legal fees, and risking the award of costs and damages if the judgment is found in favour of the student, for the tutor there is personal embarrassment and for the institution, unwelcome negative publicity. Legislation in the UK (in force from September 2002) means that changes to methods of learning and teaching have to be made.
