Skill believes that work based training is more akin to further education than to other services covered by Part III and, in line with the establishment of a single council, should come under the new legislation and benefit from the accompanying Code of Practice. At present institutions do not receive funding to cover the individual support needs of disabled students because the DSA is assumed to cover these. However, DSA is not available to many nursing and midwifery students, to postgraduates in Scotland, or to any international students. The role of professional bodies Education providers are to be justified in discriminating against disabled students if professional requirements prevent an individual from entering a profession with a particular disability. Skill is aware that some professional bodies restrict access to disabled people unnecessarily and as a result disabled people who would be able to practise a particular profession with appropriate adjustments are denied both an education and a career.
Professional bodies lie completely outside discrimination law at present.
This is unacceptable. Skill recommends that the DDA be further amended to lay a duty on all public bodies, including professional bodies, to 'promote equal opportunities for disabled people' so that this discrimination can be outlawed. Access to buildings Access to buildings is crucial. Draft guidelines on interpreting the 2004 duties on service providers indicated that service providers will be exempt from prosecution as long as their buildings comply with the appropriate building regulations at the time they are built or refurbished. This is not an approach that is acceptable in education.