I’ve written about Ryan Leitch before, but for those of you who don’t recognise the name, he’s the 18 year-old Auckland boy who topped the world in the Cambridge Geography exam last year. He’s also got muscular atrophy, and I reckon he’s a real inspiration for young disabled people in this country. Yet despite this, for some absurd reason, he can’t get funding for a support person at University, despite wanting to continue with his passion – Geography – at New Zealand’s top University, the University of Auckland, and it is putting his hopes of tertiary study this year in serious jeopardy.

The really bizarre thing is that funding for a support person was available to Ryan while he attended Westlake Boys High School, on Auckland’s North Shore. Yet he is ineligible for funding at Uni unless he stays at high school until he’s 21!

What?! Is it such an absurd notion to think that a disabled person would attend Uni straight after school like any other person? Apparently there’s a proposal before Cabinet at the moment to sort this ‘anomaly’ out, let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later, eh?