Access to education for students with disability : Barriers and difficulties
- Part 1 -

Vijay Garg *

1. Lack of available options

There are not enough services available to students with disability to match the requirements. In early education, a mix of services is often required. In schools, physical access limits choice, as does provision of support services and a selection of schools prepared to provide full access to the curriculum. Rural, regional and isolated areas provide minimal option (see also transitional services and post-school options).

2. Lack of information to families or prospective students about options

Many parents do not know what choices are open to their children in either Special Schools or inclusive schools, or about accessing ancillary services. They are often unaware of how to access educational services appropriate to the needs of their child with disability, particularly in early intervention and early childhood education. Older students find it difficult to obtain sufficient information about vocational education, pre-employment training and support services, or adult and community education.

3. Lack of information to families about procedures (applications for funding, expectations of school's management of their child's education process)

Many parents have no information about procedures for funding or personal support and do not know what pre-schools, schools or any of the post-school services will arrange for the student. Many do not have information about planning the student's educational goals and how these are established, or what an Aide's role is, or whether equipment can be obtained to assist in accessing the curriculum. They do not know how personal care or health care can be arranged or what needed therapies can be provided in the educational setting.

4. Inconsistency (lack of equivalence) between various education providers and sectors

In many instances, the move from one educational sector to the next reveals significant gaps in level of service. Moving a young child with disability from early childhood services to primary school is frequently a transition in which the programs and supports are not replicated in the new setting.

The same applies at all transitional levels, equally from primary school to secondary school, and from there to the range of post-school options. There is lack of equivalence within a region from one school to another, and from the private sector to the public school sector, so families dissatisfied with service or who move location find the student unable to move with ease across education settings.

5. Co-ordination between services, departments and ancillary staff unsatisfactory

The need for collaborative service provision is great in supporting students with disability. In many cities, towns, areas and regions, the needed coordination between education, health and community services is disorganised or non-existent. Ancillary staff of the most necessary disciplines of speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy are often not easily accessible to education authorities for their students. Procedures for accessing these services has undergone change and accessibility has diminished in recent years.

6. Funding for student disability support insufficient

Insufficient provision of funds is the biggest issue in providing equal access to education for students with disability. There are several funding sources, none of them sufficient to make and have available the full range of services needed. (see also Equipment, Aides, therapy staff, interpreters).

7. Procedures and formulas for applying for funding too complex; delays; labelling students by disability to access funds: global budgeting/self managing schools

Procedures for applying for disability support funding have changed in some States in recent times. Funding provision is fragmented, coming through a number of departments. There is sometimes delay in obtaining approval for funding for individual students, leaving them either in school or college without the needed assistance, or not in education because they cannot access it until the funding for support is there.

In some States, the funding is approved for a student with a given diagnosis according to the funding criteria. This encourages the detrimental labelling of the student by his or her disability diagnosis, rather than as a person or by ability. In State where schools are allocated a "global" budget to administer the whole of the school's requirements autonomously, there are concerns that disability support for students who need it has very low priority compared with the many other demands in the school for finances, and that there may be too little accountability for the disability support expenditure.

8. Funding unavailable for conditions such as mild intellectual disability, behavioral problems and learning difficulties

The criteria established by Commonwealth and State funding for students' disability support requirements does not correspond with the DDA definition of disability. Many teachers report that if students in the above categories had even a little aside or speech therapy or other disability support funded, they would prosper educationally, with very little financial input.

9. Trained Aides and ancillary and support staff insufficient; difficulty with/lack of health care and personal care assistants

There are not sufficient numbers of teachers' Aides or Integration Aides available at all to meet the need. Of those there are, there is insufficient training and professional support provided for them. They need to be trained in the complexities and sensitivities of their task. Too many Aides distance the child from teacher and class, rather than assisting with inclusion.

Many children, young people and adults with disability require personal care or medical interventions throughout the day. There are problems in determining who undertakes these procedures, whether it is teachers, parents, health personnel, specially employed and credentialed staff, and in some areas, unresolved issues as to who pays the cost of these services.

10. Changes to availability of ancillary and support staff and trained Aides or inequitable arrangements for such support services

Provision of ancillary staff employed by education departments has been discontinued. Various versions have replaced the earlier arrangements. Ancillary service staff are contracted in, or groups in an area establish core services to service several schools, or arrangements are made between Community Services, Health and Education departments. There is not equal availability of ancillary service staff from one area to another, or from one State to another.

11. Equipment, technological aids and other devices insufficient

Obtaining appropriate equipment as needed for individual students, from hearing and vision aids, to electronically adapted mobility devices, to walking frames for students, is a continuing barrier to providing equal access for education providers, from students in kindergarten and child care, through the school system, to vocational and recreational education providers. Some schools within areas have arranged pooled stores to make access to these aids easier, but there are rarely enough supplies to meet the need.

12. Curriculum adaptation needed; curriculum limited; or curriculum needs not addressed. Components of courses or post-qualification employment not accessible

Although much work has been and is being done to devise appropriate adaptations of educational curricula for a range of students in a range of age groups with a range of capacities and abilities, this is one of the largest areas of difficulty for education providers and their students. It is a huge field because of the individual nature of students and of their requirements and levels of readiness to learn.

There are areas where not enough has been done or curriculum needs and curriculum adaptation is too little understood. A separate problem is when courses for qualification (vocational, pre-employment or academic) contain particular segments which a student with a disability cannot complete or cannot access. This creates difficulties with enrolment (advice and information issues), with granting qualifications or accreditation, and with post-qualification work or profession.

13. Disability unrecognised or undiagnosed

In several areas, failure to recognise or failure to diagnose a student's disability is a problem in providing access to education. In early childhood, it may not be possible to identify a child's disability, if it is a learning difficulty and the child is too young for it to show up, if it is a developmental delay, because very young children develop at vastly differing rates in the first years, if it is a complex mix of muscular, behavioral/emotional and intellectual disability which is not diagnosable until an older age. Psychiatric disbilities are not recognised by many teachers and are often denied by parent or student.

14. Disability denied by parents or unrealistically minimised

Parents sometimes deny or do not inform a school or pre-school about their child's disability. Some parents do not alert schools to the degree of disability or ask the school to provide education above the level of capacity of the student with disability. This creates problems of a sensitive nature for teachers and schools.

15. Parent choice/selection of placement for child

In most areas in Australia, the educational setting in which a student can be educated is that preferred by the parent. In the best circumstances, a setting appropriate to the student's abilities and needs can be agreed upon by parent and school. However, there are many instances where this issue creates significant conflict.

A minority of parents want either to keep their child in Special School to get the higher staff to student ratio, or to protect and care for it, when it could benefit and manage well in a regular school. Some parents whose child has more severe disability want to enrol the child in an inclusive school, when the educational benefits may be achievable. This issue in general can give rise to anger and misery for many, especially the child.

16. Parent participation needed in students' support arrangements, appropriate educational Goals and program planning

The family of a child, young person, or adult with disability probably knows more about the student's abilities, deficits, style of learning and communication and personal qualities than anyone else. In formulating curriculum plans and learning goals, these issues are more significant for a student with disability than for students without, because they may be limiting or enabling factors which the educators would benefit from knowing about. Teachers need to encourage parent participation energetically, to explain the process more clearly to parents and listen to parents far more.

17. Teacher training and support and integration aide training and support needed

Probably the biggest issue of all in the whole spectrum of barriers to access to education for students with disability, along with the issue of insufficient funding infrastructure. Many teachers were trained decades ago with nil expectation of having students with disability in the class.

A large majority of teachers are willing to manage with a range of such student, but in order to gain the confidence essential to allow for creative and responsive teaching, they need training, regular practical and theoretical reinforcement, and a support and consultation mechanism - someone to ring and ask what to do about an issue that has arisen. Some teachers without training in working with students with disability are negative and resistant.

Most are not, but need substantial input in managing the inclusive class. For different reasons, teachers' Aides and Integration Aides need training and support in the complexities of their role.


To be continued ....