Absolutely agree with your points about it being racist xenophobic etc. A friend of mine's white South African spouse had enough difficulty with it and they witnessed several instances of non-white people throughout the process being treated REALLY badly and with disdain and sneering, whereas they (both white) got treated with basic civility respect despite the process itself being fail :(
I wonder if it is legal to not provide reasonable adjustments to the test on the grounds of disability. I don't think it is. If you were completely blind they would have to find a way of reading the questions and recording your answers as I assume braille is too complex to learn from scratch for test conditions. Arguably you personally should have been allowed extra reading time as long as the competence standard (proving you knew the stuff) was met. I bet there was nothing of that in the info. Case for indirect discrimination against disabled people I wonder?
And how are newishly immigrated people who don't read and write English supposed to access reading/writing/literacy as to the best of my knowledge a lot of the ESOL stuff has had its funding cut viciously. I think being literate is useful and important - in that being illiterate is hugely hugely disempowering in our 'information society' but literacy goes hand in hand with free, easy, accessible, appropriate, targeted, supportive opportunities to learn and as you say about the important things. I'd want all immigrants to be able to access information about basics like how to get a GP, how bureaucrazy works here [1], how to get access to education, what standards are the norm.
I don't know where the balance between "racist etc" expectation of someone speaking/reading/writing English (or other UK national language) and having immigrants who are disempowered and therefore vulnerable and at risk for not knowing English is. I know it's frustrating working with immigrants or temporary residents who don't speak enough English to understand us or do their studies (I feel they're taken advantage of and we'll take their money and if they fail who cares)... Suspect it's nuanced and requirements don't work as well as incentives and support.
[Getting dragged off PC, will poss come back to this if I remember]
[1] Often international students at my work behave in ways that we find maddening and stressful because that's how it works in their home countries. Trying to explain that turning up, refusing to leave and sitting in our waiting room till the person they want appears then ambushing them is scary and stalky for us and doesn't get them what they want is a slow process. Trying to explain that when we say "X is out of the office" that is a truth and hassling all of X's colleagues by phone also doesn't work as we're not supposed to cover non emergency work of our colleagues cos it's too much. We've also had students who think if we write a letter to the VC for them that they'll waive fee issues and sometimes offer us money - again a delicate situation in explaining 'no we can't it doesn't work, it's illegal, don't do it here or it'll get you into trouble"
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baggyeyes
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-08 01:33 pm (UTC)I wonder if it is legal to not provide reasonable adjustments to the test on the grounds of disability. I don't think it is. If you were completely blind they would have to find a way of reading the questions and recording your answers as I assume braille is too complex to learn from scratch for test conditions. Arguably you personally should have been allowed extra reading time as long as the competence standard (proving you knew the stuff) was met. I bet there was nothing of that in the info. Case for indirect discrimination against disabled people I wonder?
And how are newishly immigrated people who don't read and write English supposed to access reading/writing/literacy as to the best of my knowledge a lot of the ESOL stuff has had its funding cut viciously. I think being literate is useful and important - in that being illiterate is hugely hugely disempowering in our 'information society' but literacy goes hand in hand with free, easy, accessible, appropriate, targeted, supportive opportunities to learn and as you say about the important things. I'd want all immigrants to be able to access information about basics like how to get a GP, how bureaucrazy works here [1], how to get access to education, what standards are the norm.
I don't know where the balance between "racist etc" expectation of someone speaking/reading/writing English (or other UK national language) and having immigrants who are disempowered and therefore vulnerable and at risk for not knowing English is. I know it's frustrating working with immigrants or temporary residents who don't speak enough English to understand us or do their studies (I feel they're taken advantage of and we'll take their money and if they fail who cares)... Suspect it's nuanced and requirements don't work as well as incentives and support.
[Getting dragged off PC, will poss come back to this if I remember]
[1] Often international students at my work behave in ways that we find maddening and stressful because that's how it works in their home countries. Trying to explain that turning up, refusing to leave and sitting in our waiting room till the person they want appears then ambushing them is scary and stalky for us and doesn't get them what they want is a slow process. Trying to explain that when we say "X is out of the office" that is a truth and hassling all of X's colleagues by phone also doesn't work as we're not supposed to cover non emergency work of our colleagues cos it's too much. We've also had students who think if we write a letter to the VC for them that they'll waive fee issues and sometimes offer us money - again a delicate situation in explaining 'no we can't it doesn't work, it's illegal, don't do it here or it'll get you into trouble"