Abled by Design

What a year it has been. As I mark one year as a LaunchPAD Ambassador, I feel genuinely grateful for the community I have found and the work we have shared. LaunchPAD, the three-year partnership between AHEAD and the National Disabled Postgraduate Advisory Committee (NDPAC) funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), set out to break down barriers to postgraduate study for disabled students, and being part of that mission has been one of the most meaningful chapters of my journey so far.

Sitting alongside other fellow ambassadors, each carrying their own lived experience across different disciplines, disabilities and institutions, has reminded me that advocacy is rarely a solo act. It is a chorus, and I am proud to be one voice within it.

The picture emerging from our recent meeting is one of cautious optimism.

The number of postgraduate students with disabilities enrolled in Irish universities is rising steadily, yet they remain significantly underrepresented. The most recent AHEAD figures show that only 3.3% of the total postgraduate population engage with disability support services, compared with 9.3% at undergraduate level. That gap is our main take-home message.

The progress is real and worth celebrating, but the distance between undergraduate and postgraduate participation tells its own story about the barriers that appear the moment a disabled student decides to go further. Our work through the Voices in the Community report has given shape to those barriers, from inaccessible campuses and the hidden cost of disability to the exhausting labour of constant self-advocacy. Naming them is the first step. Dismantling them is the work that remains, and far more of it is needed before postgraduate study is genuinely open to everyone with the ability to thrive in it.

Alongside this, I hope to widen my advocacy into another universe entirely. I would like to work more closely with the Embassy of Malaysia in Dublin, the Malaysian High Commission in the UK, and Education Malaysia in London, to build greater awareness of inclusive education and to strengthen the support and wellbeing of Malaysian students across these regions. There is something powerful about carrying the lessons of LaunchPAD into a community that is close to my heart. Many Malaysian students studying abroad navigate the same questions of access, disclosure and belonging that our research surfaced, often without knowing where to turn, and I believe these relationships can open doors that neither advocacy nor academia could open alone. If inclusion is to mean anything, it has to travel across borders as well as across campuses.

On a personal note, I want to share a decision that means a great deal to me. Although I was registered with disability support during my M.Ed journey at Trinity College Dublin, I chose to apply for the Trinity Research Doctorate Award for my PhD through the School based route rather than the specific category I was eligible to apply under. It was my quiet way of making a statement. I will forever be an individual with ADHD, but with the right system, pedagogy, policies, culture and mindset, I am abled, just like every other student. My challenge was never ability. It was the format and the process, and when those are designed well, the barrier simply falls away. Applying on open, competitive terms was my way of demonstrating exactly that.

I want to thank TCD’s School of Education for welcoming my research proposal, and awarding me the TRDA for my PhD, which begins this September. It allows my academia and advocacy to intertwine in the most organic way possible, each one feeding and sharpening the other.

And to the amazing people of LaunchPAD, thank you. You have made this atypical journey feel less like a fight and more like a shared endeavour. I am genuinely blessed to have you all alongside me, and I cannot wait to see what the next chapter holds for our community.

Hasrizal Abdul Jamil
www.hasrizal.com