Reasonable adjustment: Is it a way forward to manage diversity and equity issues in vocational education and training?

Abstract

Literature has highlighted the importance of having a reasonable adjustment approach as a measure of social justice to provide inclusive education for all students. However, the growing globalisation and commercialisation of vocational education and training has tended to encourage provider organisations to use more flexible reasonable adjustments to attract and retain more students in this domain. The framework of this new reasonable adjustment approach expands on the previous reasonable management approach provided to facilitate disadvantaged students. By introducing innovative and flexible teaching and assessment, this notion of reasonable adjustment now incorporates market-like efforts to secure more income in the form of fees from students. However, there remains unanswered the question of how flexible the reasonable adjustment should be. This paper questions whether achieving a more diverse student population has delivered anything of value to the students who are making up that greater diversity. Perhaps the notion of reasonableness has been applied with too narrow a focus on a reasonable diversity of student entry characteristics, rather than also embracing their learning attainment and subsequent workplace success. Reasonable adjustment may well be a way forward, but perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the concept of reasonableness before that can happen.