Deaf students have told Varsity of substantial administrative responsibilities, complications with lectures and significant impacts on mental health as a result of shortcomings in the University’s resources and disability awareness training.

First year History student Ria Patel has described the ‘ridiculous’ amount of administrative work necessary she has to do to get the support she needs.

According to Patel, in cases where problems arise and coordination between different departments is necessary for support, the responsibility is put on the student. Patel told Varsity that these issues are “time-consuming and stressful” for students.

Students have reported lecture accessibility shortcomings, with claims that supervisors and lecturers are not undergoing Deafness awareness training when necessary. Patel told Varsity that students need support beyond relying upon the “understanding” of sympathetic supervisors.

Patel told Varsity: “There’s a lot of other stuff [staff] need to know about. Amongst others, important accessibility requirements include limited background noise, good acoustics, good talking pace and facial direction, and lecturer microphone use.”

According to fifth year Medicine student Ashna Biju, inadequate arrangements have undermined her ability to participate in hospital briefings.

Limitations on provided services such as note-takers in lectures have also been reported. Biju said that throughout her time at Cambridge, she has tried all the different resources, such as having note-takers for lectures, but that resources were extremely difficult to acquire and often of bad quality.

Students who need support such as note-takers have criticised the service of external companies funded by the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA). Students have told Varsity that the University’s Accessibility and Disability Resource Centre (ADRC) often has to step in.

However, even with the University’s note-takers, students have complained that notes are often inadequate. Deaf students have said this can be due to ‘remote’ note-taking from lecture recordings which can be poor quality with auto-captioning of dubious quality.

Varsity has seen an email from the 23rd January from a note-taker who said that they could not understand a recorded lecture at all. Disabled students have told Varsity that this issue is compounded within some faculties, such as History, that do not provide lecture recordings to all disabled students due to lecture timetabling issues.

The ADRC, Student Union’s Disabled Students’ Campaign and Faculty of History have been contacted for comment.