Improving Education For Students With Disabilities In Australia: Proposed Changes

You have noticed a barrier to inclusion that affects one or more students with identified learning needs/diagnosed disabilities in your education/childcare setting. Using national and International policy documents and other assigned course content, write a persuasive submission for change in your school. Be sure to make explicit connections between the laws, policies and the changes you are proposing.

The report analyses the importance of changes in the methodologies in the education for the students with special needs. A good education is very essential for the good futures which can be made sure by daily presence of the children and young students in schools. Beside this, the proper education methodology will support proper education of the disable students of Australia.

The report aims to illustrate the key factors that affect the education of the children. The methods and curriculum used in the schools are not effective in the wellbeing of the students and do not carry their backgrounds or histories. Therefore, some changes are needed both in the process and the materials.

The report focuses on the concept of the education systems that are applied in the disabled students, the government policies and procedures, key challenges that are faced by the teachers and parents regarding the children’s education, the needed changes in the models and aim to build an effective school for the disabled pupils.

All the governments of Australia have committed to close the Gap targets though proper utilization of the policies as well as agreements among the state and territory governments and the state government of Australia. It targets to focus on the accession to education, attendance in schools, improvement of learning and completion of school.

The government has committed to improve the outcomes for the disabled students through their reform agendas and schools funding. The quality schools and quality education systems will help in quality outcome for all the disabled students. It also includes particular reform that focus on the new requirements of recipients of the special schools. All the governments of Australia have been funding for improving the number of students as well as trained teachers in the schools.

The Australian government has issued directions for the disabled education. The principals of the schools are requested for considering the statements and inform their actions in schools for improving the quality education outcomes of the students with various disabilities.

The key areas are:

• Making children ready for the education in schools
• Regular attendance of the students
• Improved literacy and numeracy skills
• Making students ready for higher studies after school.

The education council has endorsed The National Education Strategy that set the priorities and principles. These principles work as a structure to guide the jurisdiction for proper implementation of localised policies for improving the educational outcomes of the students. The government also have tried to keep the disabled students in normal schools therefore various programs are being conducted.  The chief objective of these schemes are to offer educational opportunities for the disabled kids in normal schools in order to enable their retention in school system. The disabled students who are admitted in special schools need to be considered for integration in common schools so that they obtain the communication as well as living skills at a practical level.

Government Policies

The policies outline the priority areas like

• Quality teaching, leadership and workforce development
• Identity including culture
• Partnership

These strategies identify collaborative actions for helping engaged students, raising standards and ensuring pathways after school. the children with incapacities need to be integrated in the normal school system.

• Students with locomotor handicaps
• Mildly hearing impaired
• Partially sighted children
• Mentally handicapped yet educable group
• students with multiple handicaps such as blind, orthopaedic and hearing impaired.

The challenges that the schools face in Disabled education are:

Teaching materials: most of the disabled students do not have proper curriculum and teaching materials. Integrated Education for the Disabled Children must enable proper system and methodology for these students (Eades, 2013). 

Aspirations: the disabled student are expected to o low-paid jobs but they also can dream equally as their friends. The education system of Australia allows career counselling after senior secondary school but talking about career aspirations becomes too late (Willows, Hanley & Delormier, 2012). According the educationist Stephen Hagan even the brightest child in the disabled communities has to struggle more for attaining a satisfactory education in the schools in compare to the other child.

No collaboration among services: the collaboration among the services, departments and staffs is mandatory in supporting the students with disabilities. The non-existence of collaboration among education, health and the community services led to problem in identifying and connecting with the teaching models. The research reveals the student who cannot connect or represent in their textbooks cannot perform good academically.

Complex formulas of funds: process for applying to get support for disability is fragmented, complex therefore, time consuming (Price, 2012). Obtaining approval also are delayed for funding students that leave them without necessary support. Inadequate provision of aids is one of the biggest issues in providing equivalent access to the education for the students with disabilities. Despite the fact that there are numerous funding sources but none of these is sufficient for making the full range of required services available.

Infrastructure:  analysis displays that for each dollar spent for the education of the children with diseases like autism and dyslexia just 47 cents is allocated for their education. Despite this inequality, if the children of the remote areas attend school and pursue education, they do not have proper infrastructure like classrooms and enough trained teachers (Ford, 2013).

Poverty: as the parents of the disabled students cannot afford expensive health care services for their children, they suffer more than their peers thus cannot attend schools. Hearing loss can be found in a large number of disabled students that harm their learning.

Choice of the parents:  the parents of the children with disabilities want to keep their child in some Special Schools to get the sophisticated staff to student ratio, or to safeguard and care for it, when it also could be benefitted and managed well in regular and normal schools. Some parents with children with more severe disability, opt to enrol their children in the inclusive schools, while the educational assistances are achievable. These issues in general often give rise to annoyance and misery for the child.

Problems

Need of quality training for teaching staff: the survey reveal more than 25% of Australian teachers realize that they need better training for professional development for teaching the disabled students (Barton et al., 2017). The schools with more than 10% disabled students have teachers who have no professional training to teach disabled students. Only 23% of the total teachers have some idea of methods of teaching the indigenous students.

Lack of full time instructors: in some disabled communities, children are eager to learn mathematics or have interest in learning English. These children cannot progress due to massive shortage of teachers (Deer, 2013). They do not have full time teachers or their teachers cannot teach basic mathematics and English. As the older teachers retire, the situation becomes more pathetic.

Disengaged teachers: Disabled rugby player Dean Widders states that a good teacher relates and engages with the community and encourages kids to attend schools. Children crave for consistencies and continuity from their teachers (Gray & Partington, 2012).

Improving the quality of the outcomes regarding education of the disabled children has been given higher priority from the perspectives of the national and state governments as well as jurisdictions of Australia (Behrendt, Griew & Kelly, 2012). The chief target of all the government is to reduce the gaps in attainment of education. The policies are formed to manage the disabled students, their parents, carers as well as staff and teachers.

The chief problem with the teachers that they feel the need of training on the complexities as well as sensitivities of their works so that they can manage them properly and satisfy their urges for education. In this regard, the school communities need to have engagement with the organisations that arrange such trainings and professional learnings (Coelli & Green, 2012). With the help of these programs, the teachers will be able to embed these practices into the school fabrics and improve leaning out comes of the disabled students. Such programs will develop the cultural environment of the schools, produce quality teachers, increase community engagement, betterment of student health, curriculum and leadership.

The curriculum of the schools is one of the key elements that needs to be discussed. There is a need to devise proper adaptations of the educational curriculum for the range of the students with variety of age, capacities as well as abilities. This is one of the most difficult area for the education providers as well as for the students (Cowlishaw, 2013). This field is huge as the individual feature of the students along with their requirements as well as their level of readiness for learning. Therefore, the curriculum must be apt and their adaptations must be penetrating. The separate problem of admittance and completion of the segmented courses for qualification also need to be solved. This will mitigate the issues regarding enrolment, grant and post qualification profession.

Proposals

Improving the quality of teaching is a key factor for creating an effective education centres for the disabled children as well as the whole school community. The parents and carers highlighted the issue of sympathy and awareness among the teachers and educational expectations. The teachers pointed out the issues regarding knowing the background of their students, relationship between teachers and parents, professional training, personalised plans for learning and most importantly, the relation between students and teachers (Chaffey, Bailey & Vine, 2015). The factors associated with the quality of teachers also include the whole atmosphere of the school, aspirational education, attendance of the students, opportunities of education, personalised training, inclusion of the disabled staff for assistance and good quality of infrastructure.  The good teacher communicates well, expects works rom students and mixes with his pupils freely (Ma Rhea, 2012). The efficient teacher uses technology for teaching the weak disabled students and bring variations in their lessons.

The relationship with the community and engagement is one of the key theme to build an effective partnership with a broader community and the school. This make them feel respected and valued. The key elements that can be pointed out by the teachers along with the carers and disabled parents are inclusion of the community mentors and role models in the schools, participation of the parents, carers, elder people in the cultural activities of schools (Fryberg et al., 2013). The schools can involve the communities in the decision making or the policies of the school authorities. This will provide a welcoming ambience for the disabled community on the one hand and make the school authority aware of the local students’ family as well as community issues. The most important theme about participation of the communities in school management deals with the significance of community perceptions about the school’s learning process and related issues. This aim to ask the disabled community member for assisting the teachers in proper learning process.

The wellbeing and mental satisfaction is another them that need to be discussed in detail. These factors play important role in building an effective school for the disabled students. This intention can also have a great impact on the whole school community. The factors that the teachers along with the parents and carers can found that the psychological satisfaction brought by the education is effecting the children. Therefore, the school authorities can include strategies for supporting the students both physically and mentally. The methods of career counselling for the students are offered in the secondary schools which act late (Beresford, Partington & Gower, 2012). Therefore, the proper training is needed for understanding aspirations of the serious students which will guide them for career development. This enables development of the students’ behaviour and self-confidence. It makes the students feeling secured and satisfied therefore, eventually they become more accepting and take pride in spite of their disabled identity. The health and wellbeing issue include behaviour management and incidence, racism (Colquhoun & Dockery, 2012). 

This is obvious that the teachers irrespective of region or sector and any level of education system, needs to provide coaching to a wider range of the student abilities (McKegney, 2014). Despite the fact that the process needs more time and create huge demand in the time, responsiveness and creativity of the teachers. Therefore, the total number of students learning in a class needs to be reduced in the inclusive schools. Reduction of students numbers in the classes needs more trained and empathetic teachers so that they can attend every pupil with great attention and deal with them individually.

At every levels of education spectrum, some disabilities of the students are difficult to attend than the other. These problems include the behavioural problems, Hyperactivity, Autism, Attention Deficit Disorders, learning difficulties (which are accompanied by obstruction in the students leading to behavioural difficulties), Deafness (for communication difficulties in the curriculum) and finally psychiatric problems. the teachers find these problrms challenging for incorporating students with mental disability in the normal classes, as the scopes and volume of curriculum adaptation is mandatory in only one class (Fulcher, 2015).

 The factors related to the insertion of proper methodology in the student’s curriculum focus on the inclusion of content in the subject specific areas, requirement for more perspectives teaching, the encouragement in community involvement in designing the curriculum, the process of perfect delivery of the lessons (Fitzpatrick et al., 2012). The school must provide student oriented learning therefore value the students along with their parents and community. Moreover, this factor will be beneficial for the school community as well as the staff.

To the researchers, the best way to penetrate the community and build an effective school for the disabled students is parent teacher collaboration where the teachers and parents will know each other and get information about the students (Guèvremont, & Kohen, 2012). The principal is the leader of the school community, therefore, his engagement with the parents is the most significant issue for the effective teaching. Effective communication, established policies and standards, educational expectations are the key factors highlighted by the parents and carers of the students of the disabled communities (Santoro 2012). The leadership includes proper respecting as well as understanding the parental views of the school’s atmosphere, students’ comfort, development of positive and effective staff, increasing student relationship with teacher and most importantly visible presence of the principal in the parent teacher meets. The factors also include capital works, resourcing, policies and processes of schools and the most common theme, the role of principal as administrator.

Conclusion:

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that, the education system prevailed in Australia need changes in the areas of learning materials. The texts do not penetrate the minds of the disabled students for which an educational gap has been formed. The curriculum need to focus the proper methods to teach the disabled students. The administration must give stress on the training of the teachers so that they can convey their lessons more effectively. There is a need of proper engagement among the school community, teachers, students and their parents. This collaboration will help in bring changes in the education system.

References:

Barton, S. S., Thommasen, H. V., Tallio, B., Zhang, W., & Michalos, A. C. (2017). Health and quality of life of Disabled residential school survivors, Bella Coola Valley, 2001. In Connecting the Quality of Life Theory to Health, Well-being and Education (pp. 123-135). Springer International Publishing.

Behrendt, L. Y., Griew, R., & Kelly, P. (2012). Review of higher education access and outcomes for Disabled and Torres Strait Islander people.

Beresford, Q., Partington, G., & Gower, G. (2012). Reform and resistance in Disabled education. Reform and Resistance in Disabled Education, 498.

Chaffey, G. W., Bailey, S. B., & Vine, K. W. (2015). Identifying high academic potential in Australian Disabled children using dynamic testing. Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 24(2), 24.

Coelli, M., & Green, D. A. (2012). Leadership effects: School principals and student outcomes. Economics of Education Review, 31(1), 92-109.

Colquhoun, S., & Dockery, A. M. (2012). The link between Indigenous culture and wellbeing: Qualitative evidence for Australian Disabled peoples.

Cowlishaw, G. (2013). Australian Disabled Studies: The Anthropologists Accounts. Sydney Studies in Society and Culture, 4.

Deer, F. (2013). Integrating Disabled perspectives in education: Perceptions of pre-service teachers. Canadian Journal of Education, 36(2), 175.

Eades, D. (2013). They don't speak an Disabled language, or do they? Disabled ways of using English, 56.

Fitzpatrick, J. P., Elliott, E. J., Latimer, J., Carter, M., Oscar, J., Ferreira, M., ... & Pea don, E. (2012). The Lillian Project: study protocol for a population-based active case ascertainment study of the prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) in remote Australian Disabled communities. BMJ open, 2(3), e000968.

Ford, M. (2013). Achievement gaps in Australia: What NAPLAN reveals about education inequality in Australia. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 80-102.

Fryberg, S. A., Troop-Gordon, W., D'arrisso, A., Flores, H., Ponizovskiy, V., Ranney, J. D., ... & Burack, J. A. (2013). Cultural mismatch and the education of Disabled youths: The interplay of cultural identities and teacher ratings. Developmental psychology, 49(1), 72.

Fulcher, G. (2015). Disabling policies?: A comparative approach to education policy and disability. Routledge.

Gray, J., & Partington, G. (2012). Attendance and non-attendance at school. Reform and resistance in Disabled education, 261.

Guèvremont, A., & Kohen, D. E. (2012). Knowledge of an Disabled language and school outcomes for children and adults. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(1), 1-27.

Ma Rhea, Z. (2012). Partnership for improving outcomes in Indigenous education: relationship or business?. Journal of Education Policy, 27(1), 45-66.

McKegney, S. (2014). Magic weapons: Disabled writers remaking community after residential school. Univ. of Manitoba Press.

Price, K. (2012). A brief history of Disabled and Torres Strait Islander education in Australia. Disabled and Torres Strait Islander education: An introduction for the teaching profession, 1-20.

Santoro, N., Reid, J. A., Mayer, D., & Singh, M. (2012). Producing ‘quality’teachers: the role of teacher professional standards.

Willows, N. D., Hanley, A. J., & Delormier, T. (2012). A socioecological framework to understand weight-related issues in Disabled children in Canada. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 37(1), 1-13.