Overview

It has been widely reported that the number of instances of students showing visible signs of illness, mental health difficulties and emotional disorders continues to increase. Such instances may have an adverse impact on the health, safety, learning and wellbeing of individual students and those around them and can present challenges for institutions which are required to deal with these issues.

To address these challenges, it is increasingly important for institutions to have effective policies and procedures in place to deal with situations where a student’s fitness to study is a cause for concern.

As this briefing explains, first you have to identify what 'fitness to study' means, before developing a policy that enables a positive approach to the management of physical and mental health issues and act to support a student’s learning.