Disability and Education
06/05/2015
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT ( 17:08 ): I move:
1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be established to inquire into and report on access to the South Australian education system for students with disabilities, their families, and support networks, including:
(a) the experience of students with disabilities, additional learning needs and/or challenging behaviours, and their families and advocates in the South Australian education system, including early childhood centres, junior primary, primary and high schools;
(b) the experience of discrimination, including victimisation and harassment, of students with disabilities, including, but not limited to, educational institutions failing to provide students with the support needed to reach their full academic potential on an equal basis with non-disabled students;
(c) the experience of segregation, restraint, lack of social opportunities and inadequate supports for personal care requirements, and other personal care routines such as toilet use for students with disabilities;
(d) the current level of initial and in-service training for teachers and other staff regarding students with disabilities, and suggestions for broadening and improving such training;
(e) the appropriateness or otherwise of the current DECD and school-based policies and funding mechanisms for behaviour management for students with disabilities;
(f) the availability of specialist DECD staff, including speech pathology and psychology staff in rural and regional South Australia; and
(g ) any other related matter.
2. That standing order 389 be so far suspended as to enable the C hairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.
3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.
4. That standing order 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.
5. That the committee hearings be disability accessible and resourced with Auslan interpreters as required.
Since I came into this place some five years ago, matters concerning children’s daily life at school have formed a significant part of the constituent workload with which my office deals. My office is aware of and advocating for a number of families and individuals who have felt disappointed, frustrated, isolated and disrespected by their experience with the current education system in South Australia. However, the tipping point came over Easter this year when a story—which I am sure members would be aware of—of a 10-year-old boy on the autism spectrum being placed in a cage-like structure made of pool fencing in a Canberra classroom made headlines around the nation, and rightly so.
Currently in the Australian Capital Territory an expert panel has been established to work in conjunction with an investigation into how this inappropriate, unacceptable and inhumane structure, reportedly made, as I said, out of swimming pool safety fencing, came to be installed in this Canberra classroom. This investigation will be looking at who was involved and the response of the education and training directorate.
It is on the public record that this structure was installed in a public school on 10 March 2015 and was removed subsequently on 27 March. The ACT government has resolved to have a broader look at the policy framework and practices that support schools in responding to the needs of students with disabilities or other additional learning needs and challenging behaviours.
Following this appalling incident, Dignity for Disability has continued to be approached by families and individuals with concerns about how students with disabilities are treated in South Australian schools. Children and their parents have a right to expect fair access to education in South Australia. It is something that I would hope we take as a given, yet it is not so for many students with disabilities. I am aware through my discussions with concerned parents that certainly all is not well when it comes to providing an equal, fair and well-rounded education for students with disabilities in our education system.
As members would have heard in the media in recent weeks, here in South Australia children as young as four years of age are being suspended from Department for Education and Child Development sites and, while parents may blame the school and the school may in turn blame the parents, it is time to work together as a community to get this situation sorted out.
The working life of classroom educators has changed dramatically, and the reliance on school support officers (or SSOs as they are known) to deliver programs to children with disabilities is increasing and problematic. As hard-working and as dedicated as they may be, the work of SSOs is no substitute for qualified developmental educators.
Parents have contacted me in dismay over situations where, for instance, they are telephoned by their child’s school on a daily basis and asked to come and collect their child from school due to the child’s behaviour. The child’s behaviour could be a normal, everyday part of their disability and may reasonably be expected at times to be arguably disruptive, yet the effect of this is that because the school cannot cope, the parents cannot work.
I am hearing stories of parents who are told by school principals that their child cannot attend school full-time due to a lack of support resourcing in that school. Not only is this flatly unacceptable from a human rights and an educational development perspective, but I also think it is flatly insulting when the school continues to receive full school fees for the full term from that family, regardless of the fact that their child may not be able to attend full-time.
Additionally, talking about the effect of parents being asked to come and collect their children from school, according to a 2011 Productivity Commission report, the workforce participation rate of primary carers of people with disabilities stands at just 54 per cent compared to 80 per cent of people with no family-caring responsibilities. The economic ramifications of family carers being pulled out of the workforce in this way to support their child when the education system cannot presents an unacceptable cost to families and the economy, as well as a human rights concern.
The National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy, more commonly known as NAPLAN, is once again taking place. Under nationally agreed protocols, students with disabilities are entitled to sit the test, with some adjustments as required. It is the responsibility of schools to inform parents of their rights for these adjustments and it is imperative that schools are appropriately resourced to provide the necessary supports.
Currently SA continues to spend just one-third of the national average per student with disability or other special need, and it is time we lifted our game. This committee, if established, will inquire into and report on the experiences of children, students and families in our education system. It is necessary because there are clearly far too many instances that indicate to me a level of discrimination that the broader community would not accept.
I am especially interested in finding practical solutions, such as suggestions for broadening and improving teacher and support staff training, in order to ensure that all students are adequately supported to achieve their full academic potential, regardless of disability. As I have said earlier in this place, it is unacceptable to believe that many of the barriers that people with disabilities continue to face in South Australia in 2015 are intrinsic within us. They are the result of a society that has failed to keep up with the rapidly diversifying needs of the people whom this community comprises and whom we need to support.
Children with Disability Australia released an important paper entitled ‘Inclusion in education: towards equality for students with disability’. It is important because it makes recommendations based on research about ways to empower educators to look at an education for students with disabilities as a rights-based issue. Certainly, while the resourcing of teachers, schools and classrooms is an issue, I hasten to add that we should all recognise that it does not cost money to recognise a student’s humanity. From that 2013 issue paper I would like to place on the record some of the elements of teacher education, which research shows will result in more positive attitudes towards inclusive education:
teacher education that enables teachers to develop an understanding of ableism, to recognise ableist values and practices and to seek to disestablish ableist attitudes, including consideration of representation of people who experience disability;
support to move beyond deficit thinking, entrenched within the special education paradigm, towards an approach to education which welcomes and celebrates diversity; and
learning about and developing an understanding of inclusive education.
Other points include:
engaging in critical reflection about beliefs and practices;
building confidence for inclusive education through reflective practice on developing knowledge of flexible pedagogy and universal design for learning;
engaging with critical disability studies in order to develop understanding of the social construction of disability and the role of the teacher in reducing ableism;
developing an understanding of diversity as a resource rather than a problem, and learning to presume competence and hold positive expectations of all children;
learning about available supports for facilitating inclusive education;
developing an understanding of the importance of building relationships with children in order to meet their individual needs;
developing an understanding of the importance of listening to people who experience disability, including children, and drawing on the disability rights movement in striving toward inclusive education. Within this, providing opportunities for respectful engagement with people who experience disability and their families; and
establishing strategies for ongoing collaboration with other teachers, including the provision of a theoretical toolbox to assist with engaging in ongoing critical thinking and critical reflection. I understand that that is a lengthy list, but I think it is important to get those points on the record because they make some salient points and they also talk to many of the measures that this committee I am seeking to establish will look into as well.
I think the need to challenge critical thinking and reflection about disability, and recognising people with disabilities and their families where appropriate in the case of children, are critical. As one of the recommendations of the report said, we need to move away from the automatic presumption of incompetence of people with disabilities and, rather, focus as we would with any other student on their capabilities, their capacity and their abilities to learn.
They might not always learn in the same way that students without disabilities do but, as somebody put to me in a conversation last week, we would not give up on a child because they had not learned all the necessary skills that we would expect of an adult in six to eight months, a year or perhaps even 10 years. We keep striving and find the right way for that individual to learn, and the same principle needs to apply for people who may learn differently due to disability, regardless of their age.
There is clearly a request for more awareness and knowledge on the implementation and use of inclusive and assistive technologies in classrooms as well as other measures to facilitate inclusive education. It is clear that community members are also keen for students with disabilities to have the opportunity to develop physical skills while being in the classroom, something that is reported to me as not currently occurring on a broad scale.
Just as in developing our Disability Justice Plan for South Australia, I think the parliament truly benefitted from consulting with people who were directly affected by policies and practices in the justice system area as well as using their knowledge as people living with disabilities every day. That is why I established that select committee, to get those real life stories that prove there are problems and to use that everyday personal experience and expertise to identify practical ways forward. I am certainly of the belief that a committee will be of benefit for the same reasons in this area.
As well as the other supports that we need to look at promoting for students with disabilities which I have outlined in this speech and which are also outlined in the proposed terms of reference, there is one other example that I would to make brief mention of—the Marrakesh Treaty. Australia signed the Marrakesh Treaty in June of last year, 2014. Its official title is the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. It is estimated that, if properly acknowledged, this treaty could give an estimated 285 million people with vision impairment and other print disabilities around the world access to more books published in accessible formats, including large print, braille or audio formats, for example.
The treaty also allows for exemptions to copyright law to enable organisations to produce and distribute books and other materials in formats that are accessible to people with a range of disabilities. The aim of doing so is that, by allowing exemptions to copyright law, people with a vision impairment in particular will be able to access more literature than ever before.
I think it is particularly important that we acknowledge this, because it is one thing to recognise the rights of people with disabilities on a cognitive or philosophical level and to recognise their right to participate in education alongside their peers; however, if we do not provide students with disabilities with the practical supports needed such as a book or textbook in an accessible format and other measures that I have talked about, then we are not truly recognising the rights of people with disability in a practical sense and, therefore, not at all.
In summing up, I would like to leave members with what I hope is a troubling thought. It is not often you will hear me quoting George W. Bush, but I think that this is a particularly relevant and well-articulated quote. George W. Bush once described various forms of systemic bias as the ‘soft bigotry of low expectation’. It seems to me that this phrase captures many of the essences of the reality for far too many South Australian school students. It is also aptly describes some of the condescending attitudes and, as I said earlier, the presumption of incapacity (rather than capacity) that exists in the broader community in their dealings with people with disabilities.
I hope that members will support the establishment of this committee so we can hear these real-life stories and utilise that real-life everyday expertise to establish practical ways forward. I look forward to the contributions of others and commend the motion to the chamber.
Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.
