Caption: Members of the Tipperary ETB FET team at Croke Park for the AHEAD Panorama Conference 2024.

As a national collaborator in the project, Tipperary ETB welcomes the launch of ALTITUDE – the National Charter for Universal Design in Tertiary Education.

The Charter was launched on Wednesday, 20 March at the AHEAD Panorama Conference 2024, and it kickstarts a national conversation about how the tertiary sector can adopt the Charter over time, and how the tertiary sector can work towards embedding a universal design approach.

The UDL Implementation Team in Tipperary ETB FET (Further Education and Training) firmly agrees that universal design is a significant component of our approach to meeting the diverse needs our learner population. We look forward to using the ALTITUDE Charter, the related toolkit and technical report to support us moving forward with our institutional approach to universal design.

About the ALTITUDE Charter

The learner population in tertiary education is becoming increasingly diverse, and students’ lives are also increasingly complex. The responsibility on educational institutions to provide equitable access for all is now strongly embedded in Irish legislation, and national tertiary education strategies contain more specific goals to implement a Universal Design approach, (SOLAS, 2020; Higher Education Authority, 2022).  The aim is to move towards a system where ‘Inclusion is Everyone’s Business’, where all staff play their part in delivering an inclusive educational experience.

Universal Design, or UD for short, offers us an evidence-based approach to engender this mindset, and is increasingly seen as a central tenet of our response to rising diversity, (Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, 2022).

But how can we embed a UD approach in our institutions?

That’s where ALTITUDE – the National Charter for Universal Design in Tertiary Education – comes in to play.

Funded by the HEA under PATH 4, the ALTITUDE Project is an extensive cross sectoral collaboration involving six national agencies, fifteen higher education (HE) institutions and six Education and Training Board (ETB) representatives, nominated by Directors of FET to represent the Further Education and Training sector.

To find out more about the charter watch this short video and you can download the Charter and technical report here.

Go to the Charter Launch page and download the Charter and Technical Report.

Post expires at ACTIONTIME on ACTIONDATE