An old acquaintance has a very visible physical disability she was born with. She completed her degree and has been holding a part time desk job since graduation. The disability made lots of things limited to some extend, some other things difficult/impossible, but did not stop her from travelling/working/studying.
When we recently spoke she said that last year she had wanted to retrain to do PGCE. She applied and was unsuccessful at all universities (she applied for 3 which are fairly local and would not require a move). In each case, there was some sort of excuse why they thought she would not be a suitable candidate for the course; there was no mention of her disability, but she strongly felt that was the reason why she was not accepted as the feedback was something she could have worked on (get more up to date classroom experience etc) and other candidates she met on the day were accepted despite seemingly being in a similar position (f.ex. mature student with equally no class experience,...).
We found it very unfair if that is the case, but in the back of my mind, I actually started wondering. Teaching is an exhausting job physically, having done it for 10 years I know really well. I have seen many people struggle to keep up, many healthy individuals find it hard; I have seen schools phasing out older teachers and people with long-term illnesses, wanting to replace them with someone they saw as more 'efficient'. She would have found it hard to cope, not mentioning the fact kids can be very cruel. Friend's mum told her maybe it's for the best, as maybe universities protected her against disappointment of not being able to find a job or not being able to cope if she found one. On the other hand- should she have not got a chance at least to do the degree and then look for a job and possibly be successful at it if she worked hard? Is it not unfair to deprive her of a chance to try for herself?
It's not really an AIBU, but I was wondering what people felt.