Disability, dishonesty and maths

By focusing on the assessment, Frank Furedi fails to consider the barriers to learning encountered by disabled students. Those prepared to identify themselves as disabled will encounter discrimination in a system that all too often insists individuals conform and adjusts its structures slowly and creakily.

For students with mental health problems, the disincentives to disclose their needs at an early stage are considerable: no one would willingly want to embrace the label of mental illness. These students often find the arena of assessment provides the only forum in which their needs can be discussed. In our experience, students' mental health problems have to reach crisis point before issues can be resolved.

Nicky Stanley and Jill Manthorpe School of community and health studies, University of Hull